





<L. 











THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



THB 



Intellectual Life. 



BY 



PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, 

AUTHOR OF *'A PAINTER'S CAMP," " THOUGHTS ABOUT ART," U TUB 
UNKNOWN RIVER," ETC. 



WITH 

& Portrait of Heonarfco &a Hint J, 

ETCHED BY LEOPOLD FLAMENG. 



*' Pro qua incurrisse non piget labores, dolores, exilium ; quia labo- 
rando profui, exulando didici. Quia inveni in brevi labore diuturnam 
requiem, in levi dolore immensum gaudium, in angusto exilio patriair 
ainpliKsimam." — Giordano Bruno. 



BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1882. 




\ 




3WGC 



''J £? 



TO EUGENIE H. 



We have shared together many hours of study, and you 
have been willing, at the cost of much patient labour, to 
cheer the difficult paths of intellectual toil by the unfail- 
ing sweetness of your beloved companionship. It seems 
to me that all those things which we have learned together 
are doubly my own \ whilst those other studies which I 
have pursued in solitude have never yielded me more than 
a maimed and imperfect satisfaction. The dream of my 
life would be to associate you with all I do if that were 
possible j but since the ideal can never be wholly real- 
ized, let me at least rejoice that we have been so little 
separated, and that the subtle influence of your finer 
taste and more delicate perception is ever, like some 
penetrating perfume, in the whole atmosphere around 
me. 



PREFACE. 



I propose, in the following pages, to consider the pos- 
sibilities of a satisfactory intellectual life under various 
conditions of ordinary human existence. It will form 
a part of my plan to take into account favourable and 
unfavourable influences of many kinds ; and my chief 
purpose, so far as any effect upon others may be hoped 
for, will be to guard some who may read the book alike 
against the loss of time caused by unnecessary discour- 
agement, and the waste of effort which is the conse- 
quence of misdirected energies. 

I have adopted the form of letters addressed to persons 
of very different position in order that every reader may 
have a chance of finding what concerns him. The let- 
ters, it is unnecessary to observe, are in one sense as fic- 
titious as those we find in novels, for they have never 
been sent to anybody by the post, yet the persons to 
whom they are addressed are not imaginary. I made it a 
rule, from the beginning, to think of a real person when 



▼Hi PREFA CE. 

writing, from an apprehension that by dwelling in a world 
too exclusively ideal I might lose sight of many impedi- 
ments which beset all actual lives, even the most excep- 
tional and fortunate. 

The essence of the book may be expressed in a few 
sentences, the rest being little more than evidence or 
illustration. First, it appears that all who are born with 
considerable intellectual faculties are urged towards the 
intellectual life by irresistible instincts, as water-fowl are 
urged to an aquatic life ; but the lower animals have this 
advantage over man, that as their purposes are simpler, 
so they attain them more completely than he does. The 
life of a wild duck is in perfect accordance with its 
instincts, but the life of an intellectual man is never on 
all points perfectly in accordance with his instincts. 
Many of the best intellectual lives known to us have 
been hampered by vexatious impediments of the most 
various and complicated kinds ; and when we come to 
have accurate and intimate knowledge of the lives led by 
our intellectual contemporaries, we are always quite sure 
to find that each of them has some great thwarting diffi- 
culty to contend against. Nor is it too much to say that 
if a man were so placed and endowed in every way that 
all his work should be made as easy as the ignorant 
imagine it to be, that man would find in that very facility 
itself a condition most unfavourable to his intellectual 
growth. So that, however circumstances may help us or 



PRE FA CE. ix 

hinder us, the intellectual life is always a contest or a 
discipline, and the art or skill of living intellectually does 
not so much consist in surrounding ourselves with what 
is reputed to be advantageous as in compelling every 
circumstance and condition of our lives to yield us some 
tribute of intellectual benefit and force. The needs of 
the intellect are as various as intellects themselves are 
various ; and if a man has got high mental culture during 
his passage through life it is of little consequence where 
he acquired it, or how. The school of the intellectual 
man is the place where he happens to be, and his 
teache s are the people, books, animals, plants, stones, 
and eai-h round about him. The feeling almost always 
predominant in the minds of intellectual men as they 
grow older, is not so much one of regret that their oppor- 
tunities were not more abundant, as of regret that they 
so often missed opportunities which they might have 
turned to better account. 

I have written for all classes, in the conviction that the 
intellectual life is really within the reach of everyone who 
earnestly desires it. The highest culture can never be 
within the reach of those who cannot give the years of 
labour which it costs ; and if we cultivate ourselves to 
shine in the eyes of others, to become famous in litera- 
ture or science, then of course we must give many more 
hours of labour than can be spared from a life of practical 
industry. But I am fully convinced of this, convinced by 



PREFACE. 



the observation of living instances in all classes, that any 
man or woman of large natural capacity may reach the 
tone of thinking which may justly be called intellectual, 
even though that thinking may not be expressed in the 
most perfect language. The essence of intellectual living 
does not reside in extent of science or in perfection of 
expression, but in a constant preference for higher 
thoughts over lower thoughts, and this preference may 
be the habit of a mind which has not any very consid- 
erable amount of information. This may be very easily 
demonstrated by a reference to men who lived intellect- 
ually in ages when science had scarcely begun to exist, 
and when there was but little literature that could be of 
use as an aid to culture. The humblest subscriber to a 
mechanics' institute has easier access to sound learning 
than had either Solomon or Aristotle, yet both Solomon 
and Aristotle lived the intellectual life. Whoever reads 
English is richer in the aids to culture than Plato was, yet 
Plato thought intellectually. It is not erudition that 
makes the intellectual man, but a sort of virtue which 
delights in vigorous and beautiful thinking, just as moral 
virtue delights in vigorous and beautiful conduct. Intel- 
lectual living is not so much an accomplishment as a 
state or condition of the mind in which it seeks ear- 
nestly for the highest and purest truth. It is the continual 
exercise of a firmly noble choice between the larger truth 
and the lesser, between that which is perfectly just and 



PREFACE. 



that which falls a little short of justice. The ideal life 
would be to choose thus firmly and delicately always, yet 
if we often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom 
and clear light, have we not the inward assurance that 
our aspiration has not been all in vain, that it has brought 
us a little nearer to the Supreme Intellect whose efful- 
gence draws us whilst it dazzles ? Here is the true secret 
of that fascination which belongs to intellectual pursuits, 
that they reveal to us a little more, and yet a little more, 
of the eternal order of the Universe, establishing us so 
firmly in what is known, that we acquire an unshakable 
confidence in the laws which govern what is not, and 
never can be, known. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. 
THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 

LETTKR PAGB 
I. TO A YOUNG MAN OF LETTERS WHO WORKED EX- 
CESSIVELY I 

II. TO THE SAME . 5 

III. TO A STUDENT IN UNCERTAIN HEALTH 10 

IV. TO A MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN 22 

V. TO A STUDENT WHO NEGLECTED BODILY EXERCISE . 26 

VI. TO AN AUTHOR IN MORTAL DISEASE 3 1 

VII. TO A YOUNG MAN OF BRILLIANT ABILITY, WHO HAD 

JUST TAKEN HIS DEGREE 34 



PART II. 
THE MORAL BASIS. 

I. TO A MORALIST WHO HAD SAID THAT THERE WAS A 
WANT OF MORAL FIBRE IN THE INTELLECTUAL, 
ESPECIALLY IN POETS AND ARTISTS 43 

II. TO AN UNDISCIPLINED WRITER 53 



xiv CONTENTS. 



LETTER PAG8 

III. TO A FRIEND WHO SUGGESTED THE SPECULATION 

" WHICH OF THE MORAL VIRTUES WAS MOST 

ESSENTIAL TO THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE " . . . . 62 

»V. TO A MORALIST WHO SAID THAT INTELLECTUAL 

CULTURE WAS NOT CONDUCIVE TO SEXUAL 

MORALITY 68 

PART III. 
OF EDUCA T10N. 

I. TO A FRIEND WHO RECOMMENDED THE AUTHOR TO 

LEARN THIS THING AND THAT 73 

II. TO A FRIEND WHO STUDIED MANY THINGS .... 78 

III. TO THE SAME 86 

IV. TO A STUDENT OF LITERATURE 95 

V. TO A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN WHO REGRETTED THAT 

HIS SON HAD THE TENDENCIES OF A DILETTANT . 99 

VI. TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE . . . . IOI 

VII. TO THE SAME I06 

VIII. TO A STUDENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES Ill 

IX. TO THE SAME 115 

X. TO A STUDENT WHO LAMENTED HIS DEFECTIVE 

MEMORY I25 

XI. TO A MASTER OF ARTS WHO SAID THAT A CERTAIN 

DISTINGUISHED PAINTER WAS HALF-EDUCATED . . I29 

PART IV. 
THE POWER OF TIME. 

I. TO A MAN OF LEISURE WHO COMPLAINED OF WANT 

OF TIME » . I34 



CONTENTS. xr 



LETTER PAGB 

II. TO A YOUNG MAN OF GREAT TALENT AND ENERGY 

WHO HAD MAGNIFICENT PLANS FOR THE 
FUTURE I4 2 

III. TO A MAN OF BUSINESS WHO DESIRED TO MAKE 

HIMSELF BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH LITERA- 
TURE, BUT WHOSE TIME FOR READING WAS 
LIMITED * 154- 

IV. TO A STUDENT WHO FELT HURRIED AND DRIVEN . l6o 
V. TO A FRIEND WHO, THOUGH HE HAD NO PROFES- 
SION, COULD NOT FIND TIME FOR HIS VARIOUS 
INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS I&4 

PART V. 

THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY, 

I. TO A VERY RICH STUDENT l68 

II. TO A GENIUS CARELESS IN MONEY MATTERS . . . 175 

III. TO A STUDENT IN GREAT POVERTY 1 87 

PART VI. 

CUSTOM AND TRADITION 

I. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD FIRMLY RE- 
SOLVED NEVER TO WEAR ANYTHING BUT A GREY 
COAT »»...." 193 

II. TO A CONSERVATIVE WHO HAD ACCUSED THE AUTHOR 

OF A WANT OF RESPECT FOR TRADITION .... 2O0 
III. TO A LADY WHO LAMENTED THAT HER SON HAD 
INTELLECTUAL DOUBTS CONCERNING THE DOGMAS 
OF THE CHURCH 208 



xvi CON TENTS. 



LKTTER PAGB 

IV. TO THE SON OF THE LADY TO WHOM THE PRECEDING 

LETTER WAS ADDRESSED 213 

V. TO A FRIEND WHO SEEMED TO TAKE CREDIT TO 
HIMSELF, INTELLECTUALLY, FROM THE NATURE OF 

HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEF 2IQ 

VI. TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC FRIEND WHO ACCUSED THE 
INTELLECTUAL CLASS OF A WANT OF REVERENCE 
FOR AUTHORITY 222 

PART VII. 

WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 

I. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF INTELLECTUAL TASTES, 

WHO, WITHOUT HAVING AS YET ANY PARTICULAR 

LADY IN VIEW, HAD EXPRESSED, IN A GENERAL 

WAY, HIS DETERMINATION TO GET MARRIED . . 226 

II. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED 

MARRIAGE 23I 

III. TO THE SAME 237 

IV. TO THE SAME 243 

V. TO THE SAME 249 

VI. TO A SOLITARY STUDENT 257 

VII. TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE WHO FOUND IT 
DIFFICULT TO ASSOCIATE WITH PERSONS OF HER 

OWN SEX . 26o 

VIII. TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE ........ 264 

IX. TO A YOUNG MAN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, WELL EDU- 
CATED, WHO COMPLAINED THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT 
FOR HIM TO LIVE AGREEABLY WITH HIS MOTHER, 
A PERSON OF SOMEWHAT AUTHORITATIVE DISPOSI- 
TION, BUT UNEDUCATED 267 



CONTENTS. xvii 



PART VIII. 
ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 

IETTER PAGB 

I. TO A YOUNG ENGLISH NOBLEMAN ....... 273 

IL TO AN ENGLISH DEMOCRAT 287 



PART IX. 
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 

I. TO A LADY WHO DOUBTED THE REALITY OF INTEL- 
LECTUAL FRIENDSHIPS . 3OO 

II. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASH- 
IONABLE SOCIETY 304 

III. TO THE SAME 308 

IV. TO THE SAME 314 

V. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO KEPT ENTIRELY OUT 

OF COMPANY 319 

VI. TO A FRIEND WHO KINDLY WARNED THE AUTHOR OF 

THE BAD EFFECTS OF SOLITUDE 324 



PART X. 

INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 

L TO A YOUNG AUTHOR WHILST HE WAS WRITING HIS 

FIRST BOOK 334 

II. TO A STUDENT IN THE FIRST ARDOUR OF INTEL- 
LECTUAL AMBITION 340 



xviii CONTENTS. 



LETTER PAGE 

III. TO AN INTELLECTUAL MAN WHO DESIRED AN OUTLET 

FOR HIS ENERGIES 348 

IV. TO THE FRIEND OF A MAN OF HIGH CULTURE WHO 

PRODUCED NOTHING 356 

V. TO A STUDENT WHO FELT HURRIED AND DRIVEN • 360 
VI. TO AN ARDENT FRIEND WHO TOOK NO REST . . . 364 

VII. TO THE SAME 369 

VIII. TO A FRIEND (HIGHLY CULTIVATED) WHO CON- 
GRATULATED HIMSELF ON HAVING ENTIRELY 
ABANDONED THE HABIT OF READING NEWS- 
PAPERS 372 

IX. TO AN AUTHOR WHO APPRECIATED CONTEMPORARY 

LITERATURE 381 

X. TO AN AUTHOR WHO KEPT VERY IRREGULAR HOURS . 386 



PART XI. 

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 

I. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF ABILITY AND CULTURE 

WHO HAD NOT DECIDED ABOUT HIS PROFESSION . 395 
II. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD LITERARY AND 

ARTISTIC TASTES, BUT NO PROFESSION . . . . . 405 

III. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO WISHED TO DEVOTE 

HIMSELF TO LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION . . . 409 

IV. TO AN ENERGETIC AND SUCCESSFUL COTTON MANU- 

FACTURER 416 

V. TO A YOUNG ETONIAN WHO THOUGHT OF BECOMING 

A COTTON-SPINNER . . . t ,«,.,,, . 424 



CONTENTS. xix 



PART XII. 

SURRO UNDINGS. 

LETTER PACT 

I. TO A FRIEND WHO OFTEN CHANGED HIS PLACE OF 

RESIDENCE 430 

II. TO A FRIEND WHO MAINTAINED THAT SURROUND- 
INGS WERE A MATTER OF INDIFFERENCE TO A 

THOROUGHLY OCCUPIED MIND 438 

III. TO AN ARTIST WHO WAS FITTING UP A MAGNIFICENT 

NEW STUDIO • 443 



THE 



INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



LETTER I. 



TO A YOUNG MAN OF LETTERS WHO WORKED EXCESSIVELY. 



Mental labour believed to be innocuous to healthy persons — Diffi- 
culty of testing this — Case of the poet Wordsworth — Case of an 
eminent living author — Case of a literary clergyman — Case of 
an energetic tradesman — Instances of two Londoners who wrote 
professionally — Scott's paralysis — Byron's death — All intellec- 
tual labour proceeds on a physical basis. 

So little is really known about the action of the 
nervous system, that to go into the subject from the 
physiological point of view would be to undertake a 
most difficult investigation, entirely beyond the compe- 
tence of an unscientific person like your present corre- 
spondent. You will, therefore, permit me, in reference to 
this, to leave you to the teaching of the most advanced 

B 



PART I. 

LETTER 



The nervous 
system. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 



Operation of 
disease. 



E^ect of 
bia.iiwork. 



Wordsworth 



physiologists of the time ; but I may be able to offer 
a few practical suggestions, based on the experience of 
intellectual workers, which may be of use to a man 
whose career is likely to be one of severe and almost 
uninterrupted intellectual labour. 

A paper was read several years ago before the members 
of a society in London, in which the author maintained 
that mental labour was never injurious to a perfectly 
healthy human organization, and that the numerous cases 
of break-down, which are commonly attributed to ex- 
cessive brain-work, are due, in reality, to the previous 
operation of disease. 

This. is one of those assertions which cannot be an- 
swered in a sentence. Concentrated within the briefest 
expression it comes to this, that mental labour cannot 
produce disease, but may aggravate the consequences of 
disease which already exists. 

The difficulty of testing this is obvious ; for so long as 
health remains quite perfect, it remains perfect, of course, 
whether the brain is used or not ; and when failure of 
health becomes manifest, it is not always easy to decide 
in what degree mental labour may have been the cause of 
it. Again, the accuracy of s6 general a statement cannot 
be proved by any number of instances in its favour, since 
it is universally admitted that brain-work is not the only 
cause of disease, and no one affirms that it is more than 
one amongst many causes which may impede the bodily 
functions. 

When the poet Wordsworth was engaged in composing 
the " White Doe of Rylstone," he received a wound in 
his foot, and he observed that the continuation of the 
literary labour increased the irritation cf the wound ; 
whereas by suspending his work he could diminish it, 



THE PHYSICAL BAS/S. 



and absolute mental rest produced a perfect cure. In 
connection with this incident he remarked that poetic 
excitement, accompanied by protracted labour in com- 
position, always brought on more or less of bodily 
derangement. He preserved himself from permanently 
injurious consequences by his excellent habits of life. 

A very eminent living author, whose name I do not 
feel at liberty to mention, is always prostrated by severe 
illness at the conclusion of each of his works ; another 
is unwell every Sunday, because he does not write on that 
day, and the recoil after the mental stretch of the week 
is too much for him. 

In the case of Wordsworth, the physical constitution is 
believed to have been sound. His health at seventy-two 
was excellent ; the two other instances are more doubtful 
in this respect, yet both these writers enjoy very fair 
health, after the pressure of brain-work has been removed 
for any considerable time. A clergyman of robust 
organization, who does a good deal of literary work at 
intervals, told me that, whenever he had attempted to 
make it regular, the consequence had always been dis- 
tressing nervous sensations, from which at other times 
he was perfectly free. A tradesman, whose business 
affords an excellent outlet for energetic bodily activity, 
told me that having attempted, in addition to his ordinary 
work, to acquire a foreign language which seemed likely 
to be useful to him, he had been obliged to abandon it 
on account of alarming cerebral symptoms. This man 
has immense vigour and energy, but the digestive func- 
tions, in this instance, are sluggish. However, when he 
abandoned study, the cerebral inconveniences disap- 
peared, and have never returned since. 

Two Londoners who followed literature as a profession, 

P 7 



PART L 

LETTER 
I. 

Poetic 
excitement. 



Two living 
authors. 



A clergy 1 ' 
man. 



A trades- 
man. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 



T-dUO 

Londoners. 



Sir Walter 
Scott. 



Byron. 



Southey. 



and who both worked to excess, had cerebral attacks of 
a still more decided kind. One of them, after his re- 
covery, resolved to regulate his work in future, so that 
it might never pass the limits of moderation. He is 
now living, and in possession of a remarkably clear. and 
richly furnished intellect. The other, who returned to his 
old habits, died in two years from softening of the brain. 
I am not aware that in these cases there was any other 
disease than that produced by an immoderate use of the 
mental powers. 

* The health of Sir Walter Scott — we have this on his 
own testimony — was uncommonly robust, and there is 
every reason to believe that his paralysis was brought on 
by the excessive labour which resulted from his pecu- 
niary embarrassments, and that without such excessive 
mental labour and anxiety he would have preserved his 
health much longer. The death of Byron was due, no 
doubt, quite as much to habits of dissipation as to 
poetical excitement; still it is probable that he would 
have borne either of these evil influences if it had not 
been accompanied by the other ; and that to a man 
whose way of life was so exhausting as Byron's was, the 
addition of constant poetical excitement, and hard work 
in production, may be said without exaggeration to have 
killed him. We know that Scott, with all his facility, 
had a dread of that kind of excitement, and withdrew 
from the poetical arena to avoid it. We know, too, that 
the brain of Southey proved ultimately unable to endure 
the burden of the tasks he laid upon it. 

Difficult as it may be in some instances to ascertain 
quite accurately whether an overworked man had per- 
fectly sound bodily health to oegm with, obvious as it 
may be that in many breakdowns the final failure has 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



been accelerated by diseases independent of mental work, 
the facts remain, that the excessive exercise of the 
mental powers is injurious to bodily health, and that all 
intellectual labour proceeds upon a physical basis. No 
man can safely forget this, and act as if he were a pure 
spirit, superior to physical considerations. Let me then, 
in other letters on this subject, direct your attention to 
the close connection which exists between intellectual 
production and the state of the body and the brain ; not 
with the authority of a physician, but with the sympathy 
of a fellow-labourer, who has learned something from 
his own experience, and still more from the more varied 
experience of his friends. 



LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG MAN OF LETTERS WHO WORKED EXCESSIVELY. 

Mental labour rarely compatible with the best physical conditions — 
Wordsworth's manner of composition — Mr. W. F. A. Delane — 
George Sand working under pressure — Sir Walter Scott's field- 
sports — Physical exercise the best tranquillizer of the nervous 
system — Eugene Sue — Shelley's love of boating— Nervousness 
the affliction of brain-workers — Nature's kindly warning — Work- 
ing by spurts — Beckford — Byron — Indolence of men of genius 
fortunate — Distressing nature of cerebral fatigue. 

It is possible that many of the worst results of intel- 
lectual labour may be nothing more than indirect results. 
We may suffer, not from the work itself, but from seden- 
tary confinement, from want of exercise, from insufficient 
variety and amusement. 

Mental labour is seldom compatible with the best 
physical conditions ; it is so sometimes, however, or 



PART I. 

LETTER 
I. 



LETTER 
II. 



Indirect 

resxdts- 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 



Mr. Delane. 



Health in 
stock. 



George 
Sand. 



may be made so by an effort of will and resolution. 
Wordsworth composed his poetry in the open air, as he 
walked, and so preserved himself from the evil of close 
confinement to the desk. Mr. W. F. A. Delane, who 
did so much for the organization of the Times newspaper 
when it was under his management, began by doing law 
reports for that paper, in London and on circuit. His 
appearance of rude health surprised other members of 
his profession, but he accounted for it by the care he 
took to compensate for the bad air and sedentary labour 
in the courts of law by travelling between the assize 
towns on horseback, and also by a more than commonly 
temperate way of life, since he carefully avoided the bar 
dinners, eating and drinking for health alone. It is pos- 
sible to endure the most unhealthy labour when there 
are frequent intervals of invigorating exercise, accom- 
panied by habits of strict sobriety. The plan, so com- 
monly resorted to, of trying to get health in stock for the 
rest of the year by a fortnight's hurried travelling in the 
autumn, is not so good as Mr. Delane's way of getting 
the week's supply of health during the course of the 
week itself. 

If happened once that George Sand was hurried by the 
proprietor of a newspaper who wanted one of her novels 
as %. feuilleton. She has always been a careful and delibe- 
rate worker, very anxious to give all necessary labour in 
preparation, and, like all such conscientious labourers 
she can scarcely endure to be pushed. However, on this 
occasion she worked overtime, as they say in Lancashire, 
and to enable herself to bear the extra pressure she did 
part of the work at night in order to keep several hours 
of daylight clear for her walks in the country, where she 
lived. Manv writers, in the same situation, would have 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



temporarily abandoned exercise, but George Sand clung 
to it all the more at a time when it was especially neces- 
sary that she should be well. In the same way Sir Walter 
Scott counterbalanced the effects of sedentary occupation 
by his hearty enjoyment of field-sports. It has been 
supposed that his outdoor exercise, which -to weaker 
persons appears excessive, may have helped to bring on 
the stroke of paralysis which finally disabled him; but 
the fact is, that when the stroke arrived Sir Walter had 
altered his habits of life in obedience to what he believed 
to be his duty, and had abandoned, or nearly so, the 
active amusements of his happier years. I believe rather 
that whilst he took so much exercise his robust constitu- 
tion not only enabled him to endure it without injury, but 
required it to keep the nervous system healthy, in spite of 
his hard work in literary composition. Physical exercise, 
when the constitution is strong enough to endure it, is 
by far the best tranquillizer of the nervous system which 
has yet been discovered, and Sir Walter's life at Abbots- 
ford was, in this respect at least, grounded on the true 
philosophy of conduct. The French romancer, Eugene 
Sue, wrote till ten o'clock every morning, and passed 
the rest of the day, when at his country-house, either in 
horse-exercise, or field-sports, or gardening, for all of 
which he had a liking which amounted to passion. Shelley's 
delight was boating, which at once exercised his muscles 
and relieved his mind from the weariness of incessant 
invention or speculation. It will generally be found, that 
whenever a man of much intellectual distinction has 
maintained his powers in full activity, it has been by 
avoiding the bad effects of an entirely sedentary life. 

I well believe that a person naturally robust, with a 
clear and powerful brain, could bear twelve or fourteen 



part i. 

LETTER 
II. 

Scotfs field- 
sports. 



Eugene Stie. 



Shelley's 
love of 
boati?ig. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
II. 



Privation of 
exercise 



Nervous- 
ness. 



Intense 
efforts. 



Indolence a 
remedy. 



hours' work every day for years together so far as the 
work itself is concerned, if only so large an expenditure 
of time left a sufficient margin for amusement, and exer- 
cise, and sleep. But the privation of exercise, by weak- 
ening the digestive and assimilative powers, reduces the 
flow of healthy and rich blood to the brain — the brain 
requires an enormous quantity of blood, especially when 
the cerebral matter is rapidly destroyed by intellectual 
labour — and usually brings on nervousness, the peculiar 
affliction of the over-driven mental labourer. This ner- 
vousness is Nature's kindly warning, preserving us, if we 
attend to it in time, from much more serious conse- 
quences. The best preventive of it, and often the only 
cure, is plenty of moderate exercise. The customs of 
the upper classes in England happily provide this in the 
best shape, that of amusement enjoyed in society, but 
our middle classes in large towns do not get nearly 
enough of it, and the most studious are always strongly 
tempted to neglect it altogether. 

Men of great imaginative power are commonly addicted 
to a habit which is peculiarly dangerous. They work as 
race-horses work, with the utmost intensity of effort during 
short spaces of time, taxing all their powers whilst the 
brilliant effort lasts. When Beckford wrote the wonderful 
tale " Vathek " in his twentieth year, he did it at a single 
sitting, which lasted for three days and two nights, and 
it cost him a serious illness. Several of the best po^ms by 
Byron were written, if not quite with equal rapidity, still 
on the same principle of composition at white heat. In 
cases of this kind, Nature provides her own remedy in the 
indolence of the imaginative temperament, which leaves 
large spaces of time for the action of the recuperative 
processes. The same law governs the physical energies of 



THE PHYSICAL BASTS. 



the carnivora, which maintain, or recover, their capacity 
for extraordinary effort by intervals of absolute repose. 
In its long spaces of mental rest the imaginative tem- 
perament recruits itself by amusement, which in England 
usually includes physical exercise of some kind. 

This fortunate indolence of men of genius would in 
most instances ensure their safety if they were not 
impelled by necessity to labour beyond the suggestions 
of inclination. The exhausted brain never of itself seeks 
the additional exhaustion of hard work. You know very 
well when you are tired, and at such times the natural man 
in you asks plainly enough for rest and recreation. The 
art is so to arrange our lives that the natural man may 
sometimes have his way, and forget, if only for a time, 
the labours which lead to weariness — not to that pleasant 
weariness of the body which promises soundest sleep, 
but the distressing fatigue of the exhausted spirit which 
is tortured by the importunity of ideas which it is unable 
to express, and apprehensions that it cannot dismiss, 
which fights through the sleepless night the phantoms of 
unconquerable horror. 

Note.— The bad effect ofliterary composition on the physical state 
which was observed by Wordsworth in his own case was also 
noticed by Shelley during the composition of the " Cenci," which, he 
said, had been a fine antidote to nervous medicines, and kept, he 
believed, the pain in his side "as sticks do a fire." These influences 
are best observed in people whose health is delicate. Although 
Joubert, for example, had an extremely clear intellect, he could 
scarcely write at all on account of the physical consequences. I 
have come to the conclusion that literary work acts simply as a 
strong stimulant. In moderate quantities it is not only innocent, 
but decidedly beneficial ; in excess it acts like poison on the nervous 
system. What constitutes excess every man has to find out by his 
own experience A page was excess to Joubert, a chapter was 
moderation to Alexandre Dumas. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
IK 



Commands 
of necessity. 



Brain- 
weariness. 



Joubert. 



Excess. 



IO 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



His good 
health. 



LETTER III. 

TO A STUDENT IN UNCERTAIN HEALTH. 

Habits of Kant, the philosopher — Objection to an over-minute regu- 
larity of habit — Value of independence of character — Case of 
an English author — Case of an English resident in Parrs — Scott 
an abundant eater and drinker — Goethe also — An eminent French 
publisher — Turgot — Importance of good cookery — Wine drink- 
ing — Ale — The aid of stimulants treacherous — The various 
effects of tobacco — Tea and coffee — Case of an English clergy- 
man — Balzac — The Arabian custom of coffee-drinking — Wisdom 
of occasionally using stimulants. 

Immanuel Kant, who was a master in the art of taking 
care of himself, had by practice acquired a dexterous 
mode of folding himself up in the bed-clothes, by passing 
them over and under his shoulders, so that, when the 
operation was complete, he was shut up like the silkworm 
in his cocoon. " When I am thus snugly folded up in 
my bed," he would say to his friends, " I say to myself, 
can any man be in better health than I am ? " 

There is nothing in the lives of philosophers more 
satisfactory than this little passage. If Kant had said to 
himself, " Can anybody be wiser, more learned, more 
justly deserving of immortal fame than I am ? " we should 
have felt, that however agreeable this opinion might have 
been to the philosopher who held it, his private satisfaction 
stood in need of confirmation from without ; and even if 
he had really been all this, we might have reflected that 
wisdom and learning still leave their possessor exposed 
to the acutest kinds of suffering. But when a philosopher 
rolls himself up at night, and congratulates himself on the 
possession of perfect health, we only think what a happy 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



n 



man he was to possess that first of blessings, and what a 
sensible man to know the value of it ! And Kant had a 
deeper happiness in this reflection than any which could 
spring from the mere consciousness of possessing one 
of the unearned gifts of nature. The excellence of his 
health was due in part to a sufficiently good constitution, 
but it was due also to his own extreme carefulness about 
his habits. By an unceasing observation of his own bodily 
life, as far as possible removed from the anxiety of hypo- 
chondriacs, he managed to keep the physical machine 
in such regular order, that for more than thirty years he 
always rose precisely at the same minute. If his object 
had been health for health's sake, the result would still 
have been well worth any sacrifices of momentary incli- 
nation that it cost him ; but Kant had a higher purpose. 
He well knew that the regularity of the intellectual life 
depended entirely on the regularity of the bodily func- 
tions, and, unlike the foolish men alluded to by Goethe 
who pass the day in complaining of headache, and the 
night in drinking the wine that produces it, Kant not 
only knew that regular health was necessary to his work 
as a philosopher, but did everything in his power to 
preserve it. Few intellectual labourers have in this 
respect given evidence of such persistent strength of 
will. 

In his manner of living he did not consult custom, but 
the needs of his individual nature. It is not always easy 
for great brain-workers to follow with perfect fidelity the 
customs of the people about them. These usages have 
been gradually formed by the majority to suit the needs 
of the majority; but there are cases where a close 
adherence to them would be a serious hindrance 
to the highest and best activity. A good example 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Kanfs care- 
ful habits- 



Regularity 

hi mind and. 

body. 



Custom. 



12 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Beer. 



Break/ait. 



Kant's one 

meal. 



The night's 
rest. 



of this is Kant's intense antipathy to beer. It did not 
suit him, and he was right in his non-conformity to 
German usage on this point, but he was mistaken in 
believing beer to be universally injurious. There is a 
very general belief in England that what is called a good 
breakfast is the foundation of the labour of the day. 
Kant's breakfast, which he took at five in the morning at 
all the seasons of the year, consisted of a cup of tea 
and a pipe of tobacco. On this he worked eight hours, 
either in lecturing or writing — a long stretch of uninter- 
rupted labour. He dined at one, and this was his 
only meal, for he had no supper. The single repast 
was a deviation from ordinary usage, but Kant found that 
it suited him, probably because he read in the evening 
from six till a quarter to ten, and a second meal might 
have interfered with this by diminishing his power of 
attention. There exists a strong medical objection to 
this habit of taking only one meal in twenty-four hours, 
which indeed is almost unknown in England, though 
not extremely rare on the Continent. I know an 
old gentleman who for forty years has lived as Kant 
did, and enjoys excellent health and uncommon mental 
clearness. 

A detail which illustrates Kant's attention to whatever 
could affect his physical life, is his rule to withdraw his 
mind from everything requiring effort fifteen minutes 
before he went to bed. His theory, which is fully con- 
firmed by the experience of others, was, that there was a 
risk of missing sleep if the brain was not tranquillized 
before bed-time. He knew that the intellectual life of 
the day depended on the night's rest, and he took this 
precaution to secure it. The regularity of his daily walk, 
taken during the afternoon in all weathers, and the strict 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



13 



limitation of the hours of rest, also helped the soundness 
of his sleep. 

He would not walk out in company, for the whimsical 
reason that if he opened his mouth a colder air would 
reach his lungs than that which passed through the nos- 
trils ; and he would not eat alone, but always had 
guests to dinner. There are good physiological reasons 
in favour of pleasant society at table, and, besides these, 
there are good intellectual reasons also. 

By attention to these rules of his, Kant managed to 
keep both body and mind in a working order, more unin- 
terrupted than is usual with men who go through much 
intellectual labour. The solitary objection to his system 
is the excessive regularity of habit to which it bound him 
by chains of his own forging. He found a quiet happiness 
in this regularity ; indeed, happiness is said to be more 
commonly found in habit than in anything else, so deeply 
does it satisfy a great permanent instinct of our nature. 
But a mi?iute regularity of habit is objectionable, because 
it can only be practicable at home, and is compatible 
only with an existence of the most absolute tranquillity. 
Kant did not travel, and never could have travelled. He 
was a bachelor, and could not have ceased to be a 
bachelor, without a disturbance that would have been 
intolerable to him. He enjoyed the full benefits of his 
system without experiencing its disadvantages, but any 
considerable change of situation would have made the 
disadvantages apparent. Few lives can be so minutely 
regulated without risk of future inconvenience. 

Kant's example is a good one so far as this, that it 
proved a sort of independence of character which would 
be valuable to every student. All who need to keep their 
minds in the best possible condition ought to have reso- 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Society at 
table. 



Regularity 
of Iiabit. 



May be too 
minute- 



H 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 

Custom not 
always to 
be obeyed. 



Two 
instances- 



lution enough to regulate their living in a manner which 
experience, in their case, proves to be most favourable. 
Whatever may be the authority of custom, a wise man 
makes himself independent of usages which are impedi 
ments to his best activity. I know an author who was 
always unwell about eleven o'clock in the morning — so 
unwell that he could do nothing but lament his miser- 
able fate. Knowing by experience the powerful effect of 
regimen, I inquired whether he enjoyed his breakfast. 
" No, he did not." " Then why did he attempt to eat 
any breakfast?" It turned out that this foolish man 
swallowed every morning two cups of bad coffee and 
a quantity of greasy food, from a patriotic deference to 
the customs of his country. He was persuaded to 
abandon this unsuitable habit and to eat nothing till half- 
past ten, when his adviser prescribed a well-cooked little 
dejeuner a la fourchette, accompanied by half a bottle of 
sound Bordeaux. The effect was magical. My friend felt 
light and cheerful before dejeuner, and worked quite happily 
and well, whilst after dejeuner he felt like a horse that has 
eaten his corn. Nor was the good effect a transitory one ; 
the bad symptoms never returned, and he still adheres to 
his new arrangement. This little reform made a wretched 
existence happy, and has had for its result an increase in 
production with a diminution of fatigue. The explanation 
is that the stomach did not ask for the early breakfast, 
and had a hard fight to overcome it, after which came 
exhaustion and a distaste both for food and work. There 
are cases where an opposite rule is the right one. An 
Englishman living in Paris found the French dejeimer 
unsuitable for him, and discovered that he worked best 
on a substantial English breakfast, with strong tea, at 
eight in the morning, after which he went on working all 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



15 



day without any further nourishment till dinner at six in 
the evening. A friend of Sir Walter Scott's, who had 
stayed with him at Abbotsford, told me that Sir Walter ate 
and drank like everybody else as to times and seasons, 
but much more abundantly than people of less vigorous 
organization. Goethe used to work till eleven without 
taking anything, then he drank a cup of chocolate and 
worked till one. " At two he dined. This meal was the 
important meal of the day. His appetite was immense. 
Even on the days when he complained of not being 
hungry he ate much more than most men. Puddings, 
sweets, and cakes were always welcome. He sat a long 
while over his wine. He was fond of wine, and drank 
daily his two or three bottles." An eminent French 
publisher, one of the most clear-headed and hard-working 
men of his generation, never touched food or drink till 
six in the evening, when he ate an excellent dinner with 
his guests. He found this system favourable to his work, 
but a man of less robust constitution would have felt 
exhausted in the course of the day. 

Turgot could not work well till after he had dined 
copiously, but many men cannot think after a substantial 
meal ; and here, in spite of the example set by Scott and 
Goethe, let me observe that nothing interferes so much 
with brainwork as over-eating. The intellectual workman 
requires nourishment of the best possible quality, but the 
quantity ought always to be well within the capacity of 
his digestive powers. The truth appears to be, that whilst 
the intellectual life makes very large demands upon 
nutrition — for cerebral activity cannot go forward without 
constant supplies of force, which must come ultimately 
from what we have eaten — this kind of life, being seden- 
tary, is unfavourable to the work of digestion. Brain- 



part 1. 

LETTER 



Scott as an 
eater. 



Goethe at 
table. 



A French 
Publisher. 



Turgot. 



Over-eating: 



i6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Quality of 
food. 



Importance 
of cookery. 



Wines. 



workers cannot eat like sportsmen and farmers without 
losing many hours in torpor, and yet they need nutrition 
as much as if they led active lives. The only way out of 
this difficulty is to take care that the food is good enough 
for a moderate quantity of it to maintain the physical and 
mental powers. The importance of scientific cookery 
can hardly be exaggerated. Intellectual labour is, in its 
origin, as dependent upon the art of cookery as the dis- 
semination of its results is dependent upon paper-making 
and printing. This is one of those matters which people 
cannot be brought to consider seriously ; but cookery 
in its perfection — the great science of preparing food 
in the way best suited to our use — is really the most 
important of all sciences, and the mother of the arts. 
The wonderful theory that the most ignorant cookery is 
the most favourable to health is only fit for the dark ages. 
It is grossly and stupidly untrue. A scientific cook will 
keep you in regular health, when an ignorant one will offer 
you the daily alternative of starving or indigestion. 

The great question of drinks is scarcely less important. 
Sound natural wines, not strengthened by any addition of 
alcohol, are known to supply both stimulus and nourish- 
ment to the brain. Goethe's practice was not irrational, 
though he drank fifty thousand bottles in his lifetime. 
Still it is not necessary to imitate him to this extent. 
The wine-drinking populations have keener and livelier 
wits than those who use other beverages. It is proved by 
long experience that the pure juice of the grape sustains 
the force and activity of the brain. The poets who from 
age to age have sung the praise of wine were not wholly 
either deceivers or deceived. In the lands of the vine, 
where the plant is looked upon as a nursing-mother, men 
do not injure their health by drinking ; but in the colder 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



17 



North, where the grape can never ripen, the deaths from in- 
temperance are frequent. Bread and wine are almost pure 
gifts of nature, though both are prepared by man after 
the old traditional ways. These' are not poisons, but gin 
and absinthe are poisons, madness poured out from a 
bottle ! Kant and Goethe loved the pure Rhine wine, 
and their brains were clear and vigorous to the utmost 
span of life. It was not wine that ruined Burns and 
Byron, or Baudelaire, or Alfred de Musset. 

Notwithstanding Kant's horror of beer, that honest 
northern drink deserves our friendly recognition. It has 
quite a peculiar effect upon the nervous system, giving a 
rest and calm which no other drink can procure for it so 
safely. It is said that beer drinkers are slow, and a little 
stupid ; that they have an ox-like placidity not quite 
favourable to any brilliant intellectual display. But 
there are times when this placidity is what the labouring 
brain most needs. After the agitations of too active 
thinking there is safety in a tankard of ale. The wine 
drinkers are agile, but they are excitable; the beer drinkers 
are heavy, but in their heaviness there is peace. In 
that clear golden drink which England has brewed 
for more than a thousand Octobers, and will brew for 
a thousand more, we may find perhaps some explana- 
tion of that absence of irritability which is the safe- 
guard of the national character, which makes it faithful 
in its affections, easy to govern, not easy to excite 
to violence. 

If I have spoken favourably of beer and wine as having 
certain intellectual uses, please remember that I recom- 
mend only the habitual use of them, not mad rites of 
Bacchus, and even the habitual use only just so far as it 
may suit the individual constitution. The liberal regimen 

C 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Effect of 
wine. 



Beer and 
ale. 



Needs of the 
individual. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 



Men unable 

to use fur e 

wine. 



Stimulants 
liable to 
deceive. 



Effects of 
tobacco. 



of Scott and Goethe would not answer in every case, and 
there are organizations, often very robust, in which intoxi- 
cating drinks of all kinds, even in the most moderate 
quantity, impede the brain's action instead of aiding it. 
Two of the most able men I have ever known could not 
drink pure wine of any kind because it sent the blood to 
the head, with consequent cerebral oppression. And 
whilst on this subject I ought to observe, that the aid 
which these stimulants afford, even when the body grate- 
fully accepts them, is often treacherous from its very ac- 
ceptability. Men who are over-driven — and the number 
of such men is unhappily very great in these days — say that 
without stimulants they could not get through their labour; 
but the stimulants often delude us as to the limits of our 
natural powers and encourage us to attempt too much. 
The help they give us is not altogether illusory ; under 
certain limitations it is real, but many have gone farther 
than the reality of the assistance warranted. The ally brings 
to us an increase of forces, but he comes with appearances 
of power surpassing the reality, and we undertake tasks 
beyond our strength. In drinking, as in eating, the best 
rule for the intellectual is moderation in quantity with 
good quality, a sound wine, and not enough of it to foster 
self-delusion. 

The use of tobacco has so much extended itself in 
the present generation that we are all obliged to make 
a decision for ourselves on the ancient controversy 
between its friends and enemies. We cannot form a 
reasonable opinion about tobacco without bearing in 
mind that it produces, according to circumstances, one 
of two entirely distinct and even opposite classes of 
effects. In certain states of the body it acts as a stimu- 
lant, in other states as a narcotic. People who have a 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



19 



dislike to smoking affirm that it stupifies; but this asser- 
tion, at least so far as the temporary consequences are 
concerned, is not supported by experience. Most of the 
really brilliant conversations that I have listened to have 
been accompanied by clouds of tobacco-smoke ; and a 
great deal of the best literary composition that is pro- 
duced by contemporary authors is wrought by men who 
are actually smoking whilst they work. My own expe- 
rience is that very moderate smoking acts as a pleasant 
stimuli upon the brain, whilst it produces a temporary 
lassitude of the muscular system, not perceptible in 
times of rest, but an appreciable hindrance in times of 
muscular exertion. It is better therefore for men who 
feel these effects from tobacco to avoid it when they are 
in exercise, and to use it only when the body rests and 
the mind labours. Pray remember, however, that this 
is the experience of an exceedingly moderate smoker, 
who has not yet got himself into the general condition 
of body which is brought on by a larger indulgence in 
tobacco. On the other hand, it is evident that men 
engaged in physical labour find a muscular stimulus in 
occasional smoking, and not a temporary lassitude. It is 
probable that the effect varies with individual cases, and 
is never precisely what our own experience would lead us 
to imagine. For excessive smokers, it appears to be 
little more than the tranquillizing of a sort of uneasiness, 
the continual satisfaction of a continual craving. I have 
never been able to ascertain that moderate smoking 
diminished intellectual force ; but I have observed in 
excessive smokers a decided weakening of the will, and a 
preference for talking about work to the effort of actual 
labour. The opinions of medical men on this subject 
are so much at variance that their science only adds to 

c 3 



PART I. 

LETTER 
III. 

Effects of 
tobacco. 



Excessive 
smoking". 



Medical 
opinions. 



20 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 1. 

LETTER 
III. 



Tea- 
drinking. 



A clerical 
tea-drinker 



Coffee in 
France, 



and in 

A rabia. 



our uncertainty. One doctor tells me that the most 
moderate smoking is unquestionably injurious, whilst 
others affirm that it is innocent. Speaking simply from 
self-observation, I find that in my own case tea and coffee 
are far more perilous than tobacco. 

Almost all English people are habitual tea-drinkers, and 
as the tea they drink is very strong, they may be said to 
use it in excess. The unpleasant symptoms which tea- 
poisoning produces in a patient not inured by habit, 
disappear in the seasoned tea-drinker, leaving only a 
certain exhilaration, which appears to be perfectly in- 
nocuous. If tea is a safe stimulant, it is certainly an 
agreeable one, and there seems to be no valid reason 
why brain-workers should refuse themselves that solace. 
I knew a worthy clergyman many years ago who from the 
most conscientious motives denied himself ale and wine, 
but found a fountain of consolation in the tea-pot. His 
usual allowance was sixteen cups, all of heroic strength, 
and the effect upon his brain seems to have been alto- 
gether favourable, for his sermons were both long and 
eloquent, and to this day he is preaching still, without 
any diminution of his powers. French people find in 
coffee the most efficacious remedy for the temporary 
torpor of the mind which results from the processes of 
digestion. Balzac drank great quantities of coffee whilst 
he wrote ; and this, it is believed, brought on the terrible 
nervous disease that accelerated his end. The best 
proof that tea and coffee are favourable to intellectual 
expression is that all nations use one or the other as aids 
to conversation. In Mr. Palgrave's Travels in Arabia 
there is never any talk without the inevitable coffee, that 
fragant Arabian berry prepared with such delicate cunning 
that it yields the perfect aroma, 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



The wisdom of occasionally using these various stimu- 
lants for intellectual purposes is proved by a single con- 
sideration. Each of us has a little cleverness and a great 
deal of sluggish stupidity. There are certain occasions 
when we absolutely need the little cleverness that we 
possess. The orator needs it when he speaks, the poet 
when he versifies, but neither cares how stupid he may 
become when the oration is delivered and the lyric set 
down on paper. The stimulant serves to bring out the 
talent when it is wanted, like the wind in the pipes 
of an organ. "What will it matter if I am even a little 
duller afterwards?" says the genius; "I can afford to 
be dull when I have done." But the truth still remains 
that there are stimulants and stimulants. Not the 
neciar of the gods themselves were worth the dash 
of a wave upon the beach, and the pure cool air of 
the morning. 

NoTE.-What is said in the above letter about the employment 
of stimulants is intended to apply only to cases in which there is no 
organic disease. The harm which diseased persons do to themselves 
by conforming to customs which are innocent for others is as lament- 
able as it is easily avoidable. Two bottles of any natural wine grown 
above the latitude of Lyons are a permissible daily allowance to a 
man whose organs are all sound ; but the doctors in the wine districts 
unanimously forbid pure wine when there is a chronic inflammatory 
tendency. In these cases even the most honest Bordeaux ought to 
be diluted with twice its volume of water. There are many chronic 
diseases which tobacco irritates and accelerates. Both wine and to- 
bacco are injurious to weak eyes. 



21 

PART I. 

LKTTHK 



Practical 
service uf 
stimulants* 



Diseased 
Persons. 



22 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 



Two little 
brothers. 



LETTER IV. 



TO A MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN. 



Muscular and intellectual tendencies in two boys — Difficulty of find- 
ing time to satisfy both — Plato on the influences of music and 
gymnastics — Somnolence and digestion — Neglect of literature — 
Natural restlessness of the active temperament — Case of a Gari- 
baldian officer — Difficulty of taking a sufficent interest in exercise 
— A boar hunt. 

I know two little boys, sons of a near neighbour, who 
have from childhood exhibited opposite tendencies. One 
of them is incessantly active, always out of doors in any 
weather, busy about horses, and farming, and game, 
heedless of his books, and studying only under positive 
compulsion. The other sits at home with his lessons or 
a story-book, and only goes out because he is incited by 
the fraternal example. The two lads represent two dis- 
tinct varieties of human life, the active and the intel- 
lectual. The elder is happiest during physical exertion ; 
the younger is happiest when his brain is fully occupied. 
Left entirely to themselves, without the equalizing influ- 
ence of the outside world and the ways of living which 
general custom has established, they would lead the most 
opposite lives. The elder would inevitably become a 
farmer, that he might live in the country and take exercise 
all day long, or else he would seek adventure in wild 
travel, or in romantic warfare ; but the younger would very 
quickly be taken possession of by some engrossing intel- 
lectual pursuit, and lead the life of a sedentary student. 
The problem which these two young lives have before them 
is the reconciliation of their tendencies. Since they come 
of cultivated parents, the intellectual lad has the better 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



23 



chance of following his own bent. Both will have to 
take their University degrees, and the younger has the 
advantage there. Still there are powerful influences in 
favour of the elder. His activity will be encouraged by 
the admiration of his companions, and by the example of 
the country gentlemen who are his neighbours. He can 
ride, and row, and swim ; he is beginning to shoot ; at 
twenty he will be a sportsman. When once he has taken 
his degree, I wonder what will be the advances in his 
intellectual culture. Fraternal and social influences will 
preserve the younger from absolute physical inaction ; 
but there are not any influences powerful enough to keep 
the elder safe from intellectual rust. 

If you, who are a distinguished sportsman and athlete, 
would kindly inform us with perfect frankness of the line 
which your studies have followed since you quitted Eton, 
we should be the wiser for your experience. Have 
gymnastic exercises hardened you, as Plato said they did, 
when pursued excessively ? and do you need the musical 
studies which he both valued and dreaded as the most 
powerful of softening influences ? If you have energy 
enough to lead both lives, pray how do you find the time ? 

As to Plato's musical influence, you invite it, and yet 
you treacherously elude its power. After being out all 
day in the pursuit of sylvan pleasures (if shooting on 
treeless wastes can be called a sylvan pleasure), you come 
home at nightfall ravenous. Then you do ample justice 
to your dinner, and having satisfied your /aim de chasseur, 
you go into the drawing-room, and ask your wife to play 
and sing to you. If Plato could witness that pretty scene, 
he would approve your obedience to his counsels. He 
would behold an athletic Englishman stretching his mighty 
limbs on a couch of soft repose, and letting his soul grow 



part 1. 

LETTER 
IV. 



A sportsman 
and athlete* 



In the 
evening. 



24 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
IV. 



The 

sportsman? s 

reading'. 



The active 
life. 



tender as his ears drank ravishing harmonies. If, how- 
ever, the ancient sage, delighted with so sweet a picture 
of strength refined by song, were to dwell upon the sight 
as I have done, he would perceive too soon that, although 
your body was present indeed, your soul had become 
deaf in sleep's oblivion. So it happens to you night 
after night, and the music reaches you no more than the 
songs of choristers reach the dead in the graves below. 

And the elevating influences of literature ? You have 
books, of course, in abundance. There is a library, 
amongst other luxuries of your home. But the literature 
your intellect feeds upon is in the columns of the Field, 
your newspaper. Yet this neglect of the means of cul- 
ture is not due to any natural feebleness of the mind. 
Your brain, by its nature, is as vigorous as your vigorous 
body. It is sleep, and weariness, and the great neces- 
sary business of digestion, that drown your intellectual 
energies. The work of repairing so great a destruction 
of muscle is nature's chief concern. Since you became 
the mighty hunter that you are, the wear and tear have 
been enormous, and the necessary rapidity of reconstruc- 
tion has absorbed your rich vitality. 

I will not question the wisdom of your choice, if there 
has been any deliberate choice, though perhaps the life 
of action that you lead may have grown rather out of 
circumstances determining habit than from any conscious 
resolution. Health is so much more necessary to hap- 
piness than culture, that few who could choose between 
them would sacrifice it for learning, unless they were 
impelled by irresistible instincts. And beyond the great 
delight of health and strength there is a restlessness in 
men born to be active which must have its outlet in 
activity. I knew a brave Italian who had followed 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



25 



Garibaldi in all his romantic enterprises who "had suffered 
from privation and from wounds, who had not only faced 
death in the wildest adventures, but, what is even more 
terrible to the active temperament, had risked health 
from frequent exposure ; and when I asked him whether 
it was affection to his famous chief, or faith in a political 
creed, or some more personal motive that had led him to 
this scorn of prudence, he answered that, after honest 
self-examination, he believed the most powerful motive 
to be the passion for an active life. The active tempera- 
ment likes physical action for its own sake, and not as a 
means of health. Activity renews itself and claims larger 
and larger satisfaction, till at last the habit of it absorbs 
the whole energy of the man. 

Although such a life as yours would be incompatible 
with the work I have to do, it would be an unmixed 
benefit to me to take a greater interest in exercise. If 
you could but communicate that interest, how willingly 
would I become your pupil! The fatal law of the 
studious temperament is, that in exercise itself it must 
find some intellectual charm, so that we quit our books 
in the library only to go and read the infinite book of 
nature. We cannot go out in the country without inces- 
santly thinking about either botany, or geology, or land- 
scape painting, and it is difficulty for us to find a refuge 
from the importunate habit of investigation. Sport is the 
only refuge, but the difficulty is to care about it suffi- 
ciently to avoid ennui. When you have not the natural 
instinct, how are you to supply its place by any make- 
believe excitement ? There is no position in the world 
more wearisome than that of a man inwardly indifferent 
to the amusement in which he is trying to take part. 
You can watch for game with an invincible patience, 



PART I. 

LETTER 
IV. 

A brave 
haliati. 



Need 0/ 
action. 



Want of 
t7iterest in 
exercise* 



Sport. 



26 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Waiting for 
a wild boar. 



[letter 

V. 



for you have the natural instinct, but after the first ten 
minutes on the skirts of the wood I lay my gun down 
and begin to botanize. Last week a friendly neighbour 
invited me to a boar-hunt. The boar was supposed to be 
in the middle of a great impenetrable plantation, and all 
I did during the whole morning was to sit in my saddle 
awaiting the exit of the beast, cantering from one point 
of the wood's circumference to another, as the cry of the 
dogs guided me. Was it pleasure ? A true hunter would 
have found interest enough in expectation, but I felt 
like a man on a railway-platform who is waiting for a 
train that is late. 



LETTER V. 

TO A STUDENT WHO NEGLECTED BODILY EXERCISE. 

Difficulty of conciliating the animal and the intellectual lives — Bodily 
activity sometimes preserved by an effort of the will — Necessity 
of faith in exercise — Incompatibility between physical and intel- 
lectual living disappears in large spaces of time — Franklin's theory 
about concentration in exercise — Time an essential factor — 
Health of a rural postman — Pedestrian habits of Wordsworth — 
Pedestian and equestrian habits of Sir Walter Scott — Goethe's 
wild delight in physical exercise — Alexander Humboldt com- 
bated early delicacy by exercise — Intellectual utilities of physical 
action. 

"We have done those things which we ought not to 
have done ; we have left undone those things which we 
ought to have done, and there is no health in us." 

How applicable, my dear brother, are these words 
which the Church, in her wisdom, has seen to be adapted 
to all sinners — how applicable, I say, are they to students 
most especially 1 They have quite a personal applica 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



27 



bility to you and me. We have read all day long, and 
written till three o'clock in the morning ; we have taken 
no exercise for weeks, and there is no health in us. 
The doctor scrutinizes our wearied eyes, and knows that 
our brains are weary. Little do we need his warnings, 
for does not Nature herself remind us of our disobedience, 
and tell us, in language not to be misinterpreted, to amend 
the error of our ways ? Our digestion is sluggish and 
imperfect ; we are as nervous as delicate ladies, and there 
is no health in us. 

How easy it is to follow one of the two lives — the animal 
or the intellectual ! how difficult to conciliate the two ! 
In every one of us there exists an animal which might 
have been as vigorous as wolves and foxes, if it had been 
left to develop itself in freedom. But besides the animal, 
there existed also a mind, and the mental activity re- 
strained the bodily activity, till at last there is a serious 
danger of putting an end to it altogether. 

I know two men, about fifty-five years old both of 
them, and both of them admirably active. They tell me 
that their bodily activity has been preserved by an effort 
of the will ; that if they had not resolutely kept up the 
habit of using legs and arms in daily work or amusement 
their limbs would have stiffened into uselessness, and 
their constitutions would have been unable to bear the 
call of any sudden emergency. One of them has four 
residences in different parts of the same county, and yet 
he will not keep a carriage, but is a pedestrian terrible to 
his friends ; the other is at the head of a great business, 
and gives an example of physical activity to his work- 
people. Both have an absolute faith in habitual exercise ; 
and both affirm that if the habit were once broken they 
could never afterwards resume it. 



part 1. 

LETTER 



The two 
lives- 



Bodily 

activity 
preserved 



28 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
V. 



Faith in 
exercise. 



Conciliation 

between 

body and 

mind. 



Franklin's 
theory of 
exercise. 



Time is 
needed. 



We need this faith in exercise — this firm conviction of 
its necessity — the sort of conviction that makes a man go 
out in all weathers, and leave the most urgent intellectual 
labour for the mere discipline and hardening of the body. 
Few students possess this faith in its purity. It is hard 
to believe that we shall get any good from exercise pro- 
portionate to the sacrifice of time. 

The incompatibility between the physical and the intel- 
lectual lives is often very marked if you look at small 
spaces of time only ; but if you consider broader spaces, 
such as a lifetime, then the incompatibility is not so 
marked, and gives place to a manifest conciliation. The 
brain is clearer in vigorous health than it can be in the 
gloom and misery of sickness ; and although health may 
last for a while without renewal from exercise, so that 
if you are working under pressure for a month the time 
given to exercise is so much deducted from the result, 
it is not so for the life's performance. Health sustained 
for many years is so useful to the realization of all con- 
siderable intellectual undertakings, that the sacrifice to the 
bodily well-being is the best of all possible investments. 

Franklin's theory about concentrating his exercise for 
the economy of time was founded upon a mistake. 
Violent exertion for minutes is not equivalent to moderate 
exercise for hours. The desire to concentrate good of 
various kinds into the smallest possible space is one of 
the commonest of human wishes, but it is not encouraged 
by the broader economy of nature. In the exercise of 
the mind every teacher is well aware that time is an 
essential factor. It is necessary to live with a study for 
hundreds or thousands of hours before the mind can 
assimilate as much of the subject as it may need ; and 
so it is necessary to live in exercise during a thousand 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



29 



hours of every year to make sure of the physical benefits. 
Even the fresh air itself requires time to renovate our 
blood. The fresh air cannot be concentrated ; and to 
breathe the prodigious quantities of it which are needed for 
perfect energy, we must be out in it frequently and long. 

The inhabitants of great cities have recourse to gym- 
nastics as a substitute for the sports of the country. 
These exercises have one advantage — they can be directed 
scientifically so as to strengthen the limbs that need de- 
velopment; but no city gymnasium can offer the in- 
vigorating breezes of the mountain. We require not 
only exercise but exposure — daily exposure to the health- 
giving inclemencies of the weather. The postman who 
brings my letters walks eight thousand miles a year, and 
enjoys the most perfect regularity of health. There are 
operatives in factories who go through quite as much 
bodily exertion, but they have not his fine condition. 
He is as merry as a lark, and announces himself every 
morning like a bearer of joyful tidings. What the post- 
man does from necessity an old gentleman did as regularly, 
though more moderately, for the preservation of his health 
and faculties. He went out every day ; and as he never 
consulted the weather, so he never had to consult the 
physicians. 

Nothing in the habits of Wordsworth — that model of 
excellent habits — can be better as an example to men of 
letters than his love of pedestrian excursions. Wherever 
he happened to be, he explored the whole neighbour- 
hood on foot, looking into every nook and cranny of it j 
and not merely the immediate neighbourhood, but ex- 
tended tracts of country ; and in this way he met with 
much of his best material. Scott was both a pedestrian 
and an equestrian traveller, having often, as he tells us, 



part 1. 

LETTER 

V. 

Fresh air. 



Gymnastics. 



Exposure. 



A postman. 



Words- 

7uort/i's 

pedestrian 

habits. 



Scott. 



3° 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I 

LETTER 
V. 

Goethe's 
delight in 
exercise- 



Humboldt. 



Leonardo 
da Vinci. 



Intellectual 
uses of 
action 



walked thirty miles or ridden a hundred in those rich 
and beautiful districts which afterwards proved to him 
such a mine of literary wealth. Goethe took a wild 
delight in all sorts of physical exercise — swimming in the 
Ilm by moonlight, skating with the merry little Weimar 
court on the Schwansee, riding about the country on 
horseback, and becoming at times quite outrageous in 
the rich exuberance of his energy. Alexander Humboldt 
was delicate in his youth, but the longing for great enter- 
prises made him dread the hindrances of physical insuffi- 
ciency, so he accustomed his body to exercise and fatigue, 
and prepared himself for those wonderful explorations 
which opened his great career. Here are intellectual lives 
which were forwarded in their special aims by habits 
of physical exercise ; and, in an earlier age, have we not 
also the example of the greatest intellect of a great 
epoch, the astonishing Leonardo da Vinci, who took such 
a delight in horsemanship that although, as Vasari tells 
us, poverty visited him often, he never could sell his 
horses or dismiss his grooms? 

The physical and intellectual lives are not incom- 
patible. I may go farther, and affirm that the physical 
activity of men eminent in literature has added abund- 
ance to their material and energy to their style ; that the 
activity of scientific men has led them to innumerable 
discoveries ; and that even the more sensitive and con- 
templative study of the fine arts has been carried to a 
higher perfection by artists who painted action in which 
they had had their part, or natural beauty which they 
had travelled far to see. Even philosophy itself owes 
much to mere physical courage and endurance. How 
much that is noblest in ancient thinking may be due to 
the hardy health of Socrates I 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



31 



LETTER VI. 

TO AN AUTHOR IN MORTAL DISEASE. 

Considering death as a certainty— The wisdom learned from suffering 
—Employment of happier intervals— The teaching of the diseased 
not to be rejected— Their double experience— Ignorance of Nature's 
spoiled children— Benefit of disinterested thought— Reasons for 
pursuing intellectual labours to the last— Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 

When Alexandre Bixio lay on his death-bed, his friend 
Labrousse visited him, and exclaimed on entering .the 
room, " How well you are looking to-day ! " To this, 
Bixio, who was clearly aware of his condition, answered 
in these words : — " Voyons, mon pauvre Labrousse ; tu 
viens voir un homme qui n'a plus qu'un quart d'heure 
a vivre, et tu veux lui faire croire qu'il a bonne mine ; 
allons, une poigne'e de main, cela vaut mieux pour un 
homme que tous ces petits mensonges-la." 

I will vex you with none of these well-meant but 
wearisome little falsehoods. We both of us know your 
state ; we both know that your malady, though it may be 
alleviated, can never be cured ; and that the fatal termina- 
tion of it, though delayed by all the artifices of science, 
will certainly arrive at last. The cheerful courage which 
enables you to look this certainty in the face has also 
enabled you to extract from years of suffering that pro- 
fouridest wisdom which (as one of the wisest of living 
Englishmen has told us) can be learned from suffering 
alone. The admirable elasticity of your intellectual and 
moral nature has enabled you, in the intervals of physical 
uneasiness or pain, to cast aside every morbid thought, 
to enter quite fully and heartily into the healthy life of 
others, and to enjoy the magnificent spectacle of the 



part 1. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Bixio on kis 
death- bed. 



Wisdom 

learned 

from 

suffering. 



3 2 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 

VI. 

Effects of 
disease on a 
noble mind- 



Exfierience 
of the sick. 



universe with contented submission to its laws — those 
beneficent yet relentless laws which to you bring debility 
and death. You have continued to write notwithstanding 
the progress of your malady ; and yet, since it has so 
pitilessly held you, there is no other change in the spirit 
of your compositions than the deepening of a graver 
beauty, the addition of a sweeter seriousness. Not one 
sentence that you have written betrays either the injustice 
of the invalid, or his irritability. Your mind is not clouded 
by any mist from the fever marshes, but its sympathies 
are far more active than they were. Your pain has taught 
you a tender pity for all the pain that is outside of you, 
and a patient gentleness which was wanting to your 
nature in its days of barbarian health. 

Surely it would be a lamentable error if mankind were 
to carry out the recommendation of certain ruthless 
philosophers, and reject the help and the teaching of 
the diseased. Without undervaluing the robust per- 
formance of healthy natures, and without encouraging 
literature that is morbid, that is fevered, jmpatient, and 
perverse, we may still prize the noble teaching which is 
the testament of sufferers to the world. The diseased 
have a peculiar and mysterious experience ; they have 
known the sensations of health, and then, in addition 
to this knowledge, they have gained another knowledge 
which enables them to think more accurately even of 
health itself. A life without suffering would be like a 
picture without shade. The pets of Nature, who do not 
know what sufferering is, and cannot realize it, have 
always a certain rawness, like foolish landsmen who 
laugh at the terrors of the ocean, because they have 
neither experience enough to know what those terrors 
are, nor brains enough to imagine them. 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



33 



You who are borne along, slowly but irresistibly, to 
that Niagara which plunges into the gulf of death, — you 
who, with perfect self-possession and heroic cheerfulness, 
are counting the last miles of the voyage, — find leisure to 
study and think as the boat glides onwards silently to 
the inevitable end. It is one of the happiest privileges 
of the high intellectual life that it can elevate us — at 
least in the intervals of relief from complete prostra- 
tion or acute pain — to regions of disinterested thought, 
where all personal anxieties are forgotten. To feel that 
he is still able, even in days of physical weakness and 
decline, to add something to the world's inheritance of 
knowledge, or to bequeath to it some new and noble 
thought in the pearl of complete expression, is a pro- 
found satisfaction to the active mind that is lodged in a 
perishing body. Many diseases fortunately permit this 
activity to the last ; and I do not hesitate to affirm, that 
the work done in the time of physical decline has in not 
a few instances been the most perfect and the most per- 
manently valuable. It is not accurately true that the mind 
and the body invariably fail together. Physicians who 
know how prevalent chronic diseases are, and how many 
eminent men are physically inconvenienced by them, 
know also that minds of great spiritual energy possess 
the wonderful faculty of indefinitely improving themselves 
whilst the body steadily deteriorates. Nor is there any- 
thing irrational in this persistent improvement of the 
mind, even to the extremest limit of material decay ; for 
the mind of every intellectual human being is part and 
parcel of the great permanent mind of humanity ; and 
even if its influence soon ceases to be traceable — if the 
bpoken words are lorgotten — if the written volume is not 
reprinted or even quoted, it has not worked in vain. The 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VI. 



A privilege 

of the 
intellectual. 



U'nrk in 
physit al 
decline. 



34 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VI. 



The 

nameless 
workers. 



LETTER 
VII. 



intellectual light of Europe in this century is not only due 
to great luminaries whom everyone can name, but to 
millions of thoughtful persons, now utterly forgotten, 
who in their time loved the light, and guarded it, and 
increased it, and carried it into many lands, and be- 
queathed it as a sacred trust. He who labours only for 
his personal pleasure may well be discouraged by the 
shortness and uncertainty of life, and cease from his selfish 
toil on the first approaches of disease ; but whoever has 
fully realized the grand continuity of intellectual tradition, 
and taken his own place in it between the future and the 
past, will work till he can work no more, and then gaze 
hopefully on the world's great future, like Geoffroy Saint- 
Hilaire, when his blind eyes beheld the future of zoology. 



LETTER VII. 

TO A YOUNG MAN OF BRILLIANT ABILITY, WHO HAD JUST TAKEN 

HIS DEGREE. 

A domestic picture — Thoughts suggested by it — Importance of the 
senses in intellectual pursuits — Importance of hearing to Madame 
de Stael — Importance of seeing to Mr. Ruskin — Mr. Prescott, the 
historian — How blindness retarded his work — Value of all the 
five senses — Self-government indispensable to their perfection — 
Great value of longevity to the intellectual life. 

It is always a great pleasure to me to pass an evening at 
your father's house ; but on the last occasion that pleasure 
was very much enhanced because you were once more 
with us. I watched your mother's eyes as she sat in her 
place in the drawing-room. They followed you almost 
without ceasing, and there was the sweetest, happiest 
expression on her dear face, that betrayed her tender 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



35 



maternal love for you and her legitimate maternal pride. 
Your father was equally happy in his own way ; he was 
much more gay and talkative than I have seen him for 
two or three anxious years ; he told amusing stories ; he 
entered playfully into the jests of others ; he had pleasant 
projects for the future, and spoke of them with facetious 
exaggeration. I sat quietly in my corner, slyly observing 
my old friends, and amusing myself by discovering (it did 
not need much perspicacity for that) the hidden sources 
of the happiness that was so clearly visible. They were 
gladdened by the first successes of your manhood ; by 
the evidence of your strength ; by the realization of hopes 
long cherished. 

Watching this charming picture with a perfect sym- 
pathy, I began to have certain thoughts of my own which 
it is my present purpose to communicate to you without 
disguise. I thought, first, how agreeable it was to be the 
spectator of so pretty a picture ; but then my eyes wan- 
dered to a painting that hung upon the wails, in which 
also there were a mother and her son, and this led me 
a long way. The painting was a hundred years old; 
but although the colours were not quite so fresh as when 
they left the palette of the artist, the beautiful youth who 
stood radiant like a young Apollo in the centre of the 
composition had not lost one of the great gifts with 
which his cunning human creator had endowed him. 
The fire of his eye had not been quenched by time ; the 
bloom of his cheek still flushed with faint vermilion ; his 
lip was full and imperious ; his limbs athletic ; his bear- 
ing haughty and dauntless. All life seemed spread before 
him like a beautiful rich estate of which every acre was 
his own. How easily will he conquer fame ! how easily 
kindle passion I Who shall withstand this pink and 

D 2 



PART I. 

LETTER 

vir. 



A 

domestic 
scene. 



A 

painting. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PAR^ I. 

LETTER 
VII 



Suhtile 

cha?iges of 

time. 



Perfection 
of the senses, 



perfection of aristocracy — this ideal of the age of fine 
gentlemen, with all the gifts of nature helped by all the 
inventions of art ? 

Then I thought farther : " That splendid young noble- 
man in the picture will look just as young as he does 
now when we shall be either superannuated or dead." 
And I looked at you and your mother again and thought : 
" It is just five minutes since I saw these two living 
beings, and in this little space of time they have both oi 
them aged a little, though no human observer has enough 
delicacy of perception to detect so inappreciable an 
alteration." I went gradually on and on into the future, 
trying to imagine the changes which would come over 
yourself more especially (for it was you who were the 
centre of my reverie), till at last I imagined pretty 
accurately what you might be at sixty ; but there it 
became necessary to stop, because it was too difficult to 
conceive the processes of decay. 

After this, one thought grew upon me and became 
dominant. I thought, at present he has all the senses 
in their perfection, and they serve him without a hitch. 
He is an intelligence served by organs, and the organs 
are all doing their duty as faithfully as a postman who 
brings letters. When the postman becomes too infirm 
to do his work he will retire on his little pension, and 
another will take his place and bring the letters just as 
regularly ; but when the human organs become infirm 
they cannot be taken out and replaced by new ones, so 
that we must content ourselves, to the end, with their 
service, such as it may be. Then I reflected how useful 
the senses are to the high intellectual life, and how wise 
it is, even for intellectual purposes, to preserve them as 
long as possible in their perfection, 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



37 



To be able to see and hear well — to feel healthy sensa- 
tions — even to taste and smell properly, are most important 
qualifications for the pursuit of literature, and art, and 
science. If you read attentively the work of any truly 
illustrious poet, you will find that the whole of the imagery 
which gives power and splendour to his verse is derived 
from nature through one or other of these ordinary chan- 
nels. Some philosophers have gone much farther than 
this, and have affirmed that the entire intellectual life is 
based ultimately upon remembered physical sensations ; 
that we have no mental conception that is really indepen- 
dent of sensuous experience ; and that the most abstract 
thought is only removed from sensation by successive 
processes of substitution. I have not space to enter into 
so great and mysterious a subject as this ; but I desire to 
draw your attention to a truth very commonly overlooked 
by intellectual people, which is the enormous importance 
of the organs of sense in the highest intellectual pursuits. 
I will couple together two names which have owed their 
celebrity, one chiefly to the use of her ears, the other to 
the use of his eyes. Madame de Stael obtained her 
literary material almost exclusively by means of con- 
versation. She directed, systematically, the talk of the 
learned and brilliant men amongst whom she lived to the 
subject which for the moment happened to occupy her 
thoughts. Her literary process (which is known to us in 
detail through the revelations of her friends) was pur- 
posely invented to catch everything that she heard, as a 
net catches fish in a river. First, she threw down on paper 
a very brief rough draft of the intended literary project. 
This she showed to few, but from it she made a second 
"state" (as an engraver would say), which she exhibited 
to some of her trusted friends, profiting by their hints 



PART I. 
LETTER 

VII. 



Intellectual 

utility of 

the senses. 



Heading in 

the case of 

Madame de 

Stael. 



Her literary 
process. 



33 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I 

LETTER 
VII. 



Hoiv little 

she used her 

eyes. 



Ruskin. 



His use of 
sight. 



and suggestions. Her secretary copied the corrected 
manuscript, incorporating the new matter, on paper with 
a very broad margin for farther additions. During all 
the time that it took to carry her work through these 
successive states, that ingenious woman made the best 
possible use of her ears, which were her natural providers. 
She made everybody talk who was likely to be of any use 
to her, and then immediately added what she had caught 
on the wide margin reserved for that purpose. She used 
her eyes so little that she might almost as well have 
been blind. We have it on her own authority, that were 
it not out of respect to custom, she would not open her 
window to see the Bay of Naples for the first time, 
whereas she would travel five hundred leagues to talk 
with a clever man whom she had never met. 

Now since Madame de Stael's genius fed itself exclu- 
sively through the faculty of hearing, what an enormous 
difference it would have made to her if she had been 
deaf! It is probable that the whole of her literary 
reputation was dependent on the condition of her ears. 
Even a very moderate degree of deafness (just enough to 
make listening irksome) might have kept her in perpetual 
obscurity. 

The next instance I intend to give is that of a distin- 
guished contemporary, Mr. Ruskin. His peculiar posi- 
tion in literature is due to his being able to see as culti- 
vated artists see. Everything that is best and most 
original in his writings is invariably either an account 
of what he has seen in his own independent inimitable 
way, or else a criticism of the accurate or defective sight 
of others. His method of study, by drawing and taking 
written memoranda of what he has seen, is entirely dif- 
ferent from Madame de Stael's method, but refers always, 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



39 



as hers did, to the testimony of the predominant sense. 
Eveiyone whose attention has been attracted to the 
subject is aware that, amongst people who are com- 
monly supposed to see equally well, and who are not 
suspected of any tendency to blindness, the degrees 
of perfection in this sense vary to infinity. Suppose 
that Mr. Ruskin (to our great misfortune) had been 
endowed with no better eyes than many persons who 
see fairly well in the ordinary sense, his enjoyment 
and use of sight would have been so much diminished 
that he would have had little enthusiasm about seeing, 
and yet that kind of enthusiasm was quite essential to 
his work. 

The well-known instance of Mr. Prescott, the his- 
torian, is no doubt a striking proof what may be accom- 
plished by a man of remarkable intellectual ability without 
the help of sight, or rather helped by the sight of others. 
We have also heard of a blind traveller, and even of a 
blind entomologist ; but in all cases of this kind there are 
executive difficulties to be overcome, such that only the 
most resolute natures would ever dream of encountering 
them. When the materials for the " Reign of Ferdinand 
and Isabella" arrived in Prescott's house from Europe, 
his remaining eye had just suffered from over-exertion to 
such a degree that he could not use it again for years. 
" I well remember," he wrote in a letter to a friend, " the 
blank despair which I felt when my literary treasures 
arrived, and I saw the mine of wealth lying around me 
which I was forbidden to explore." And although, by 
a most tedious process, which would have worn out the 
patience of any other author, Mr. Prescott did at last 
arrive at the conclusion of his work, it cost him ten 
years of labour — probably thrice as much time as would 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Prescott^ the 
historian. 



40 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Taste and 
smell. 



The Jive 
senses. 



Evils of 
excess. 



have been needed by an author of equal intellectual 
ability without any infirmity of sight. 

Although, of the five senses which God has given us, 
sight and hearing are the most necessary to the intel- 
lectual life, it may easily be demonstrated that the lower 
ones are not without their intellectual uses. Perfect 
literature and art can only be produced by men who are 
perfect in all their natural faculties. The great creative 
intellects have never been ascetics; they have been 
rightly and healthily sensitive to every kind of pleasure. 
The taste of fruits and wines, the perfume of flowers, 
are a part of the means by which the spirit of Nature 
influences our most secret thoughts, and conveys to us 
suggestions, or carries us into states of feeling which 
have an enormous effect upon our thinking, though the 
manner in which the effect is produced is one of the 
deepest mysteries of our mysterious being. When the 
Caliph Vathek added five wings to the palace of Al- 
koremmi, on the hill of Pied Horses, for the particular 
gratification of each of his five senses, he only did on 
a uselessly large scale what every properly-endowed 
human being does, when he can afford it, on a small 
one. 

You will not suspect me of preaching unlimited indul- 
gence. The very object of this letter is to recommend, 
for intellectual purposes, the careful preservation of the 
senses in the freshness of their perfection, and this is 
altogether incompatible with every species of excess. If 
you are to see clearly all your life, you must not sacrifice 
eyesight by overstraining it ; and the same law of mode- 
ration is the condition of preserving every other faculty. 
I want you to know the exquisite taste of common dry 
bread ; to enjoy the perfume of a larch wood at a dis- 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 



41 



tance ; to feel delight when a sea- wave dashes over you. 
I want your eye to be so sensitive that it shall discern 
the faintest tones of a grey cloud, and yet so strong 
that it shall bear to gaze on a white one in the dazzling 
glory of sunshine. I would have your hearing sharp 
enough to detect the music of the spheres, if it were but 
audible, and yet your nervous system robust enough to 
endure the shock of the guns on an ironclad. To have 
and keep these powers we need a firmness of self-govern- 
ment that is rare. 

Young men are careless of longevity; but how precious 
are added years to the fulness of the intellectual life ! 
There are lives, such as that of Major Pendennis, which 
only diminish in value as they advance — when the man 
of fashion is no longer fashionable, and the sportsman 
can no longer stride over the ploughed fields. The old 
age of the Major Pendennises is assuredly not to be 
envied ; but how rich is the age of the Humboldts ! 
I compare the life of the intellectual to a long wedge 
of gold — the thin end of it begins, at birth, and the depth 
and value of it go on indefinitely increasing till at last 
comes Death (a personage for whom Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne had a peculiar dislike, for his unmannerly habit 
of interruption), who stops the auriferous processes. 
Oh the mystery of the nameless ones who have died 
when the wedge was thin and looked so poor and light ! 
Oh the happiness of the fortunate old men whose thoughts 
went deeper and deeper like a wall that runs out into 
the sea ! 

Note. — One of the most painful cases of interruption caused by 
death is that of Cuvier. His paralysis came upon him whilst he was 
still in full activity, and death prevented him from arranging a great 
accumulation of scientific material. He said to M. Pasquier, "1 had 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VII. 

Sensitive7iess 

and 

strength. 



Valne of 

longevity* 



Cuvier. 



42 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART I. 

LETTER 
VII. 



great things still to do ; all was ready in my head. After thirty years 
of labour and research, there remained but to write, and now the 
hands fail, and carry with them the head." But the most lamentable 
instances of this kind of interruption are, from the nature of things, 
unknown to us. Even the friends of the deceased cannot estimate 
the extent of the loss, for a man's immediate neighbours are generally 
the very last persons to become aware of the nature of bis powers 
or the value of his acquirements. 



PART II. 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



LETTER L 



TO A MORALIST WHO HAD SAID THAT THERE WAS A WANT OP 
MORAL FIBRE IN THE INTELLECTUAL, ESPECIALLY IN POETS 
AND ARTISTS. 

The love of intellectual pleasure — The seeking for a stimulus — In- 
toxication of poetry and oratory — Other mental intoxications — 
The Bishop of Exeter on drudgery — The labour of composition 
in poetry — Wordsworth's dread of it — Moore — His trouble with 
" Lalla Rookh " — His painstaking in preparation — Necessity of 
patient industry in other arts — John Lewis, Meissonier, Mul- 
ready — Drudgery in struggling against technical difficulties — 
Water-colour painting, etching, oil-painting, fresco, line-engrav- 
ing — Labour undergone for mere discipline — Moral strength of 
students — Giordano Bruno. 

You told me the other day that you believed the induce- 
ment to what I called intellectual living to be merely the 
love of pleasure — pleasure of a higher kind, no doubt, 
than that which we derive from wine, yet fairly comparable 
to it. You went on to say that you could not, from the 
moral point of view, discern any appreciable difference 
between intoxicating oneself by means of literature or 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 



The love of 
pleasure* 



44 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 



Excitement 
of oratory. 



Me7ital 
stimulants. 



art and getting tipsy on port wine or brandy; that the 
reading of poetry, most especially, was clearly self-intoxi- 
cation —a service of Venus and Bacchus, in which the 
suggestions of artfully-ordered words were used as sub- 
stitutes for the harem and the wine-flask. Completing 
the expression of this idea, you said that the excitement 
produced by oratory was exactly of the same nature as 
the excitement produced by gin, so that Mr. Bright and 
M. Gambetta — nay, even a gentleman so respectable as 
the late Lord Derby — belonged strictly to the same pro- 
fession as the publicans, being dealers in stimulants, and 
no more. The habitual student was, in your view, nothing 
better than the helpless victim of unresisted appetite, 
to whom intellectual intoxication, having been at first a 
pleasure, had finally become a necessity. You added 
that any rational person who found himself sinking into 
such a deplorable condition as this, would have recourse 
to some severe discipline as a preservative — a discipline 
requiring close attention to common things, and rigo- 
rously excluding every variety of thought which could 
possibly be considered intellectual. 

It is strictly true that the three intellectual pursuits — 
literature, science, and the fine arts — are all of them 
strong stimulants, and that men are attracted to them 
by the stimulus they give. But these occupations are 
morally much nearer to the common level of other occu- 
pations than you suppose. There is no doubt a certain 
intoxication in poetry and painting ; but I have seen a 
tradesman find a fully equivalent intoxication in an 
addition of figures showing a delightful balance at his 
banker's. I have seen a young poet intoxicated with the 
love of poetry; but I have also seen a young mechanical 
genius on whom the sight of a locomotive acted exactly 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



45 



like a bottle of champagne. Everything that is capable 
of exciting or moving man, everything that fires him with 
enthusiasm, everything that sustains his energies above 
the dead level of merely animal existence, may be com- 
pared, and not very untruly, to the action of generous 
wine. The two most powerful mental stimulants — since 
they overcome even the fear of death — are unquestion- 
ably religion and patriotism: ardent states of feeling both 
of them when they are genuine; yet this ardour has a 
great utility. It enables men to bear much, to perform 
much which would be beyond their natural force if it 
were not sustained by powerful mental stimulants. And 
so it is in the intellectual life. It is because its labours 
are so severe that its pleasures are so glorious. The 
Creator of intellectual man set him the most arduous 
tasks — tasks that required the utmost possible patience, 
courage, self-discipline, and which at the same time were 
for the most part, from their very nature, likely to receive 
only the most meagre and precarious pecuniary reward. 
Therefore, in order that so poor and weak a creature 
might execute its gigantic works with the energy neces- 
sary to their permanence, the labour itself was made 
intensely attractive and interesting to the (g\v who were 
fitted for it by their constitution. Since their courage 
could not be maintained by any of the common motives 
which carry men through ordinary drudgery — since neither 
wealth nor worldly position was in their prospects, the 
drudgery they had to go through was to be rewarded by 
the triumphs of scientific discovery, by the felicities of 
artistic expression. A divine drunkenness was given to 
them for their encouragement, surpassing the gift of the 
grape. 

But now that I have acknowledged, not ungratefully, 



PART ir. 

LETTER 

I. 



The most 
powerful 
stimulants. 



A rduous 
tasks. 



Their 
reward. 



4 6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II 

LETTER 
I. 



Drudgery. 



A riists and 
authors. 



the necessity of that noble excitement which is the life 
of life, it is time for me to add that, in the daily labour 
of all intellectual workers, much has to be done which 
requires a robustness of the moral constitution beyond 
what you appear to be aware of. It is not long since the 
present Bishop of Exeter truly affirmed, in an address to 
a body of students, that if there were not weariness in 
work, that work was not so thorough-going as it ought to 
be. " Of all work," the Bishop said, " that produces 
results, nine-tenths must be drudgery. There is no work, 
from the highest to the lowest, which can be done well 
by any man who is unwilling to make that sacrifice. 
Part of the very nobility of the devotion of the true 
workman to his work consists in the fact that a man is 
not daunted by finding that drudgery must be done ; and 
no man can really succeed in any walk of life without a 
good deal of what in ordinary English is called pluck. 
That is the condition of all work whatever, and it is the 
condition of all success. And there is nothing which 
so truly repays itself as this very perseverance against 
weariness." 

You understand, no doubt, that there is drudgery in 
the work of a lawyer or an accountant, but you imagine 
that there is no drudgery in that of an artist, or author, or 
man of science. In these cases you fancy that there is 
nothing but a pleasant intoxication, like the puffing of 
tobacco or the sipping of claret after dinner. The Bishop 
sees more accurately. He knows that "of all work that 
produces results nine-tenths must be drudgery." He 
makes no exceptions in favour of the arts and sciences ; 
if he had made any such exceptions, they would have 
proved the absence of culture in himself. Real work of 
all descriptions, even including the composition of poetry 






THE MORAL BASIS. 



47 



(the most intoxicating of all human pursuits), contains 
drudgery in so large a proportion that considerable moral 
courage is necessary to carry it to a successful issue. 
Some of the most popular writers of verse have dreaded 
the labour of composition. Wordsworth shrank from it 
much more sensitively than he did from his prosaic 
labours as a distributor of stamps. He had that 
horreicr de la plume which is a frequent malady amongst 
literary men. But we feel, in reading Wordsworth, that 
composition was a serious toil to him — the drudgery is 
often visible. Let me take, then, the case of a writer 
of verse distinguished especially for fluency and ease 
— the lightest, gayest, apparently most thoughtless of 
modern minstrels — the author of "The Irish Melodies" 
and " Lalla Rookh." Moore said — I quote from memory, 
and may not give the precise words, but they were to this 
effect — that although the first shadowy imagining of a 
new poem was a delicious fool's paradise, the labour of 
actual composition was something altogether different. 
He did not, I believe, exactly use the word " drudgery," 
but his expression implied that there was painful drudgery 
in the work. When he began to write " Lalla Rookh " the 
task was anything but easy to him. He said that he was 
" at all times a far more slow and painstaking workman 
than would ever be guessed from the result." For a long 
time after the conclusion of the agreement with Messrs. 
Longman, " though generally at work with a view to this 
task, he made but very little real progress in it." After 
many unsatisfactory attempts, finding that his subjects 
were so slow in kindling his own sympathies, he began to 
despair of their ever touching the hearts of others. " Had 
this series of disheartening experiments been carried 
on much further, I must have thrown aside the work 



PART II 

LETTER 
I. 



Poets. 



Words- 
worth. 



Moore. 



Lalla 
Rookh. 



48 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 

Moore's 
self-prepa- 
ration. 



Submission 
to discipline 



Foreign 
artists. 



in despair." He took the greatest pains in long and 
laboriously preparing himself by reading. " To form a 
storehouse, as it were, of illustrations purely Oriental, 
and so familiarize myself with its various treasures that, 
quick as Fancy required the aid of fact in her spiritings, 
the memory was ready to furnish materials for the spell- 
work ; such was, for a long while, the sole object of my 
studies." After quoting some opinions favourable to the 
.truth of his Oriental colouring, he says : " Whatever of 
vanity there may be in citing such tributes, they show, 
at least, of what great value, even in poetry, is that 
prosaic quality, industry, since it was in a slow and 
laborious collection of small facts that the first founda- 
tions of this fanciful romance were laid." 

Other fine arts make equally large claims upon the 
industry of their professors. We see the charming result, 
which looks as if it were nothing but pleasure — the mere 
sensuous gratification of an appetite for melody or colour ; 
but no one ever eminently succeeded in music or painting 
without patient submission to a discipline far from attrac- 
tive or entertaining. An idea was very prevalent amongst 
the upper classes in England, between twenty and thirty 
years ago, that art was not a serious pursuit, and that 
Frenchmen were too frivolous to apply themselves seri- 
ously to anything. When, however, the different schools 
of art in Europe came to be exhibited together, the truth 
began to dawn upon people's minds that the French and 
Belgian schools of painting had a certain superiority over 
the rest — a superiority of quite a peculiar sort ; and when 
the critics applied themselves to discover the hidden 
causes of this generally-perceived superiority, they found 
out that it was due in great measure to the patient 
drudgery submitted to by those foreign artists in their 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



49 



youth. English painters who have attained distinction 
have gone through a like drudgery, if not in the public 
atelier at least in secrecy and solitude. Mr. John Lewis, 
in reply to an application for a drawing to be reproduced 
by the autotype process, and published in the Portfolio, 
said that his sketches and studies were all in colour, but 
if we liked to examine them we were welcome to select 
anything that might be successfully photographed. Not 
being in London at the time, I charged an experienced 
friend to go and see if there were anything that would 
answer our purpose. Soon afterwards he wrote : " I 
have just been to see John Lewis, and have come away 
astounded'' He had seen the vast foundations of private 
industry on which the artist's public work had been 
erected, — innumerable studies in colour, wrought with the 
most perfect care and finish, and all for self-education 
merely, not for any direct reward in fame. We have all 
admired the extraordinary power of representation in the 
little pictures of Meissonier ; that power was acquired 
by painting studies life-size for self-instruction, and the 
artist has sustained his knowledge by persistence in that 
practice. Mulready, between the conception of a new 
picture and the execution of it, used to give himself a 
special training for the intended work by painting a study 
in colour of every separate thing that was to form part 
of the composition. It is useless to go on multiplying 
these examples, since all great artists, without exception, 
have been distinguished for their firm faith in steady well- 
directed labour. This faith was so strong in Reynolds 
that it limited his reasoning powers, and prevented him 
from assigning their due importance to the inborn natural 
gifts. 

Not only in their preparations for work, but even in 

E 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 

John Lewis. 



His private 
studies. 



Meissonier. 



Mulready. 



5° 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 

Work of 
artists. 



Tech?iical 
troubles. 



In water 
colour. 



In etching. 



Infresco. 



the work itself, do artists undergo drudgery. It is the 
peculiarity of their work that, more than any other human 
work, it displays whatever there may be in it of pleasure 
and felicity, putting the drudgery as much out of sight 
as possible ; but all who know the secrets of the studio 
are aware of the ceaseless struggles against technical 
difficulty which are the price of the charms that plea- 
santly deceive us. The amateur tries to paint in water- 
colour, and finds that the gradation of his sky will not 
come right ; instead of being a sound gradation like that 
of the heavenly blue, it is all in spots and patches. Then 
he goes to some clever artist who seems to get the right 
thing with enviable ease. " Is my paper good ? have 
my colours been properly ground?" The materials 
are sound enough, but the artist confesses one of the 
discouraging little secrets of his craft. " The fact is," 
he says, " those spots that you complain of happen to 
all of us, and very troublesome they are, especially in 
dark tints ; the only way is to remove them as patiently 
as we can, and it sometimes takes several days. If one 
or two of them remain in spite of us, we turn them into 
birds." In etching, the most famous practitioners get 
into messes with the treacherous chemistry of their acids, 
and need an invincible patience. Even Meryon was 
always very anxious when the time came for confiding 
his work to what he called the traitresse liqueur; and 
whenever I give a commission to an etcher, I am always 
expecting some such despatch as the following : " Plate 
utterly ruined in the biting. Very sorry. Will begin 
another immediately." We know what a dreadful series 
of mishaps attended our fresco-painters at Westminster, 
and now even the promising water-glass process, in which 
Maclise trusted, shows the bloom of premature decay 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



5i 



The safest and best known of modern processes, simple 
oil-painting has its own dangers also. The colours sink 
and alter ; they lose their relative values ; they lose their 
pearly purity, their glowing transparence — they turn to 
buff and black. The fine arts bristle all over with 
technical difficulties, and are, I will not say the best 
school of patience in the world, for many other pur- 
suits are also very good schools of patience ; but I will 
say, without much fear of contradiction from anybody 
acquainted with the subject, that the fine arts offer 
drudgery enough, and disappointment enough, to be a 
training both in patience and in humility. 

In the labour of the line-engraver both these qualities 
are developed to the pitch of perfect heroism. He sits 
down to a great surface of steel or copper, and day by 
day, week after week, month after month, ploughs slowly 
his marvellous lines. Sometimes the picture before him 
is an agreeable companion ; he is in sympathy with the 
painter ; he enjoys every touch that he has to translate. 
But sometimes, on the contrary, he hates the picture, 
and engraves it as a professional duty. I happened to 
call upon a distinguished English engraver — a man of 
the greatest taste and knowledge, a refined and culti- 
vated critic — and I found him seated at work before a 
thing which had nothing to do with fine art — a medley 
of ugly portraits of temperance celebrities on a platform. 
u Ah ! " he said to me sadly, " you see the dark side of 
our profession ; fancy sitting down to a desk all day long 
for two years together with that thing to occupy your 
thoughts !" How much moral fibre was needed to carry 
to a successful issue so repulsive a task as that ! You 
may answer that a stone-breaker on the roadside sur- 
passes my line -engraver both in patience and in humility ; 

e 2 



PART 11. 

LETTER 
I. 



The fine arts 
a school of 
patience. 



Line- 
engravers. 



Dark side 0/ 
their f>ro~ 
fession. ( 



52 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 



Conso- 
lations- 



Work dnne 

for discipline 

alone. 



but whereas the sensitiveness of the stone-breaker has 
been deadened by his mode of life, the sensitiveness of 
the engraver has been continually fostered and increased. 
An ugly picture was torture to his cultivated eye, and he 
had to bear the torture all day long, like the pain of an 
irritating disease. 

Still even the line-engraver has secret sources of enter- 
tainment to relieve the mortal tedium of his task-work. 
The picture may be hideous, but the engraver has hidden 
consolations in the exercise of his wonderful art. He 
can at least entertain himself with feats of interpretative 
skill, with the gentle treacheries of improving here and 
there upon the hatefulness of the intolerable original. He 
may congratulate himself in the evening, that one more 
frightful hat or coat has been got rid of; that the tire- 
some task has been reduced by a space measurable in 
eighths of an inch. The heaviest work which shows 
progress is not without one element of cheerfulness. 

There is a great deal of intellectual labour, undergone 
simply for discipline, which shows no present result that 
is appreciable, and which therefore requires, in addition 
to patience and humility, one of the noblest of the moral 
virtues, faith. Of all the toils in which men engage, none 
are nobler in their origin or their aim than those by which 
they endeavour to become more wise. Pray observe that 
whenever the desire for greater wisdom is earnest enough 
to sustain men in these high endeavours, there must be 
both humility and faith — the humility which acknow- 
ledges present insufficiency, the faith that relies upon 
the mysterious laws which govern our intellectual being. 
Be sure that there has been great moral strength in all 
who have come to intellectual greatness. During some 
brief moments of insight the mist has rolled away, and 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



53 



they have beheld, like a celestial city, the home of their 
highest aspirations; but the cloud has gathered round 
them again, and still in the gloom they have gone 
steadily forwards, stumbling often, yet maintaining their 
unconquerable resolution. It is to this sublime per- 
sistence of the intellectual in other ages that the world 
owes the treasures which they won ; it is by a like 
persistence that we may hope to hand them down, 
augmented, to the future. Their intellectual purposes 
did not weaken their moral nature, but exercised and 
exalted it. All that was best and highest in the im- 
perfect moral nature of Giordano Bruno had its source 
in that noble passion for Philosophy, which made him 
declare that for her sake it was easy to endure labour 
and pain and exile, since he had found " in brevi labore 
diuturnam requiem, in levi dolore immensum gaudium, 
in angusto exilio patriam amplissimam." 



LETTER II. 

TO AN UNDISCIPLINED WRITER. 

Early indocility of great workers— -External discipline only a sub 
stitute for inward discipline— Necessity for inward discipline — 
Origin of the idea of discipline— Authors peculiarly liable to 
overlook its uses — Good examples — Sir Arthur Helps— Sainte- 
Beuve — The central authority in the mind — Locke's opinion — 
Even the creative faculty may be commanded — Charles Baude- 
laire—Discipline in common trades and professions — Lawyers 
and surgeons — Haller — Mental refusals not to be altogether dis- 
regarded — The idea of discipline the moral basis of the intellec- 
tual life- — Alexander Humboldt. 

Sir Arthur Helps, in that wise book of his, " Thoughts 
upon Government," says that "much of the best and 



PART II. 

LETTER 
I. 



Persistence 



Gio'-dano 
Bruno. 



LETTER 



54 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II 

LETTER 
II 

Indocility of 
clever boys. 



School 
discipline 



a substitute 

/or inward 

discipline. 



greatest work in the world has been done by those who 
were anything but docile in their youth." He believes 
that "this bold statement applies not only to the greatest 
men in Science, Literature, and Art, but also to the 
greatest men in official life, in diplomacy, and in the 
general business of the world." 

Many of us who were remarkable for our indocility in 
boyhood, and remarkable for nothing else, have found 
much consolation in this passage. It is most agreeable 
to be told, by a writer very eminent both for wisdom 
and for culture, that our untowardness was a hopeful 
sign. Another popular modern writer has also encou- 
raged us by giving a long list of dunces who have 
become illustrious. 

Yet, however flattering it may be to find ourselves in 
such excellent company, at least so far as the earlier half 
of life may be concerned, we cannot quite forget the 
very numerous instances of distinguished persons who 
began by submitting to the discipline of school and 
college, and gained honours and reputation there, before 
encountering the competition of the world. 

The external discipline applied by schoolmasters is a 
substitute for that inward discipline which we all so 
greatly need, and which is absolutely indispensable to 
culture. Whether a boy happens to be a dunce at school 
or a youth of brilliant promise, his future intellectual 
career will depend very much on his moral force. The 
distinguished men who derived so little benefit from 
early discipline have invariably subjected themselves to 
a discipline of another kind which prepared them for 
the labour of their manhood. It may be a pure assump- 
tion to say this, but the assumption is confirmed by every 
instance that is known to me. Man) - eminent men have 



THE MORAL BASIS, 



55 



undergone the discipline of business, many like Franklin 
have been self-disciplined, but I have never heard of a 
person who had risen to intellectual eminence without 
voluntary submission to an intellectual discipline of 
some kind. 

There are, no doubt, great pleasures attached to the 
intellectual life, and quite peculiar to it ; but these plea- 
sures are the support of discipline and not its negation. 
They give us the cheerfulness necessary for our work, but 
they do not excuse us from the work. They are like the 
cup of coffee served to a soldier on duty, not like the 
opium which incapacitates for everything but dreaming. 

I have been led into these observations by a perusal 
of the new book which you sent me. It has many 
qualities which in a young writer are full of promise. It 
is earnest, and lively, and exuberant, but at the same 
time it is undisciplined. 

Now I believe it may be affirmed, that although there 
has been much literature in former ages which was both 
vigorous and undisciplined, still when an age presents, 
as ours does, living examples of perfect intellectual 
discipline, whoever falls below them in this respect con- 
tents himself with the very kind of inferiority which of 
all inferiorities is the easiest to avoid. You cannot, by 
an effort of the will, hope to rival the brilliance of a 
genius, but you may quite reasonably expect to obtain 
as complete a control over your own faculties and your 
own work as any other highly-cultivated person. 

The origin of discipline is the desire to do not merely 
our best with the degree of power and knowledge which 
at the time we do actually happen to possess, but with 
that which we might possess if we submitted to the 
necessary training. The powers given to us by Nature 



PART IL 

LETTER 
II. 



Pleastire the 
support of 
discipline. 



Examples. 



Origin of 
discipline» 



56 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
II. 



Good work- 
manship in 
literature. 



Helps 



Sainte- 
Beuve. 



are little more than a power to become, and this becom- 
ing is always conditional on some sort of exercise — what 
sort we have to discover for ourselves. 

No class of persons are so liable to overlook the uses 
of discipline as authors are. Anybody can write a book, 
though few can write that which deserves the name of 
literature. There are great technical differences between 
literature and book-making, but few can clearly explain 
these differences, or detect, in their own case, the absence 
of the necessary qualities. In painting, the most perfect 
finish is recognized at a glance, but the mind only can 
perceive it in the book. It was an odd notion of the 
authorities to exhibit literature in the international exhi- 
bitions ; but if they could have made people see the 
difference between sound and unsound workmanship in 
the literary craft, they would have rendered a great 
service to the higher intellectual discipline. Sir Arthur 
Helps might have served as an example to English 
writers, because he has certain qualities in which we are 
grievously deficient. He can say a thing in the words 
that are most fit and necessary, and then leave it. Sainte- 
Beuve would have been another admirable example of 
self-discipline, especially to Frenchmen, who would do 
well to imitate him in his horror of the a pen pres. He 
never began to write about anything until he had cleared 
the ground well before him. He never spoke about any 
character or doctrine that he had not bottomed (to use 
Locke's word) as far as he was able. He had an ex- 
traordinary aptitude for collecting exactly the sort of 
material that he needed, for arranging and classifying 
material, for perceiving its mutual relations. Very few 
Frenchmen have had Sainte-Beuve's intense repugnance 
to insufficiency of information and inaccuracy of Ian- 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



57 



guage. Few indeed are the French journalists of whom 
it might be said, as it may be truly said of Sainte-Beuve, 
that he never wrote even an article for a newspaper 
without having subjected his mind to a special training 
for that particular article. The preparations for one of 
his Lundis were the serious occupation of several laborious 
days ; and before beginning the actual composition, his 
mind had been disciplined into a state of the most com- 
plete readiness, like the fingers of a musician who has 
been practising a piece before he executes it. 

The object of intellectual discipline is the establish- 
ment of a strong central authority in the mind by which 
all its powers are regulated and directed as the military 
forces of a nation are directed by the strategist who ar- 
ranges the operations of a war. The presence of this 
strong central authority is made manifest in the unity 
and proportion of the results; when this authority is 
absent (it is frequently entirely absent from the minds of 
undisciplined persons, especially of the female sex), you 
have a chaos of complete confusion ; when the authority 
without being a.bsent is not strong enough to regulate 
the lively activity of the intellectual forces, you have too 
much energy in one direction, too little in another, a 
brigade where a regiment could have done the work, and 
light artillery where you want guns of the heaviest 
calibre. 

To establish this central authority it is only necessary, 
in any vigorous and sound mind, to exercise it. Without 
such a central power there is neither liberty of action nor 
security of possession. " The mind," says Locke, "should 
always be free and ready to turn itself to the variety of 
objects that occur, and allow them as much consideration 
as shall, for that time, be thought fit. To be engrossed so 



PART II. 

LETTER 



Pre para~ 
tio?i 



the central 
authority. 



Its exercise- 



53 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II 

LETTER 
II. 

Locke. 



Creative 

faadty obe- 

dietit. 



Baudelaire. 



George 
Sand. 



by one subject as not to be prevailed on to leave it for 
another that we judge fitter for our contemplation, is to 
make it of no use to us. Did this state of mind always 
remain so, everyone would, without scruple, give it the 
name of perfect madness ; and whilst it does last, at 
whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts 
about the same object no more carries us forwards 
towards the attainment of knowledge, than getting upon 
a mill-horse whilst he jogs on his circular track, would 
carry a man on a journey." 

Writers of imaginative literature have found in practice 
that even the creative faculty might be commanded. 
Charles Baudelaire, who had the poetical organization 
with all its worst inconveniences, said nevertheless that 
"inspiration is decidedly the sister of daily labour. 
These two contraries do not exclude each other more than 
all the other contraries which constitute nature. Inspira- 
tion obeys like hunger, like digestion, like sleep. There 
is, no doubt, in the mind a sort of celestial mechanism, of 
which we need not be ashamed, but we ought to make 
the best use of it. If we will only live in a resolute con- 
templation of next day's work, the daily labour will serve 
inspiration." In cases where discipline is felt to be very 
difficult, it is generally at the same time felt to be very 
desirable. George Sand complains that although " to 
overcome the indiscipline of her brain,. she had imposed 
upon herself a regular way of living, and a daily labour, 
still twenty times out of thirty she catches herself reading 
or dreaming, or writing something entirely apart from the 
work in hand." She adds that without this frequent in- 
tellectual flanerie, she would have acquired information 
which has been her perpetual but unrealized desire. 

It is the triumph of discipline to overcome both small 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



59 



and great repugnances. We bring ourselves, by its help, 
to face petty details that are wearisome, and heavy tasks 
that are almost appalling. Nothing shows the power of 
discipline more than the application of the mind in the 
common trades and professions to subjects which have 
hardly any interest in themselves. Lawyers are especially 
admirable for this. They acquire the faculty of resolutely 
applying their minds to the driest documents, with tena- 
city enough to end in the perfect mastery of their con- 
tents ; a feat which is utterly beyond the capacity of any 
undisciplined intellect, however gifted by Nature. In 
the case of lawyers there are frequent intellectual re- 
pugnances to be overcome ; but surgeons and other men 
of science have to vanquish a class of repugnances even 
less within the power of the will— the instinctive phy- 
sical repugnances. These are often so strong as to 
seem apparently insurmountable, but they yield to perse- 
vering discipline. Although Haller surpassed his con- 
temporaries in anatomy, and published several important 
anatomical works, he was troubled at the outset with a 
horror of dissection beyond what is usual with the inex- 
perienced, and it was only by firm self-discipline that he 
became an anatomist at all. 

_ There is, however, one reserve to be made about dis- 
cipline, which is this : We ought not to disregard alto- 
gether the mind's preferences and refusals, because in 
most cases they are the indication of our natural powers. 
They are not so always; many have felt attracted to 
pursuits for which they had no capacity (this happens 
continually in literature and the fine arts), whilst others 
have greatly distinguished themselves in careers which 
were not of their own choosing, and for which they felt- 
no vocation in their youth. Still there exists a certain 



PART II. 

LETTER 
II. 



Discipline in 

trades and 
professions. 



Lawyers. 



Surgeons. 



Haller. 



The mind's 
refusals- 



6o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 

LETTER 
II. 



II. 



Opinion of 
Society. 



Inward 
refusals. 



relation between preference and capacity, which may 
often safely be relied upon when there are not extrinsic 
circumstances to attract men or repel them. Discipline 
becomes an evil, and a very serious evil, causing immense 
losses of special talents to the community, when it over- 
rides the personal preferences entirely. We are less in 
danger of this evil, however, from the discipline which 
we Impose upon ourselves than from that which is im- 
posed upon us by the opinion of the society in which we 
live. The intellectual life has this remarkable peculiarity 
as to discipline, that whilst very severe discipline is indis- 
pensable to it, that which it really needs is the obedience 
to an inward law, an obedience which' is not only com- 
patible with revolt against other people's notions of what 
the intellectual man ought to think and do, but which 
often directly leads to such revolt as its own inevitable 
result. 

In the attempt to subject ourselves to the inward law, 
we may encounter a class of mental refusals which 
indicate no congenital incapacity, but prove that the 
mind has been incapacitated by its acquired habits and 
its ordinary occupations. I think that it is particularly 
important to pay attention to this class of mental refusals, 
and to give them the fullest consideration. Suppose the 
case of a man who has a fine natural capacity for paint- 
ing, but whose time has been taken up by some profes- 
sion which has formed in him mental habits entirely 
different from the mental habits of an artist. The inborn 
capacity for art might whisper to this man, "What if 
you were to abandon your profession and turn painter?" 
But to this suggestion of the inborn capacity the acquired 
unfitness would, in a man of sense, most probably reply, 
" No ; painting is an art bristling all over with the most 



THE MORAL BASls. 



61 



alarming technical difficulties, which I am too lazy to 
overcome ; let younger men attack them if they like." 
Here is a mental refusal of a kind which the severest 
self-disciplinarian ought to listen to. This is Nature's 
way of keeping us to our specialities j she protects us by 
means of what superficial moralists condemn as one of 
the minor vices — the disinclination to trouble ourselves 
without necessity, when the work involves the acquisition 
of new habits. 

The moral basis of the intellectual life appears to be 
the idea of discipline ; but the discipline is of a very 
peculiar kind, and varies with every individual. People 
of original power have to discover the original discipline 
that they need. They pass their lives in thoughtfully 
altering this private rule of conduct as their needs alter, 
as the legislature of a progressive State makes unceasing 
alterations in its laws. When we look back upon the 
years that are gone, this is our bitterest regret, that whilst 
the precious time, the irrecoverable, was passing by so 
rapidly, we were intellectually too undisciplined to make 
the best personal use of all the opportunities that it 
brought. Those men may be truly esteemed happy and 
fortunate who can say to themselves in the evening of 
their days — " I had so prepared myself for every succes- 
sive^ enterprise, that when the time came for it to be 
carried into execution my training ensured success." 

I had thought of some examples, and there are several 
great men who have left us noble examples of self- 
discipline ; but, in the range and completeness of that 
discipline, in the foresight to discern what would be 
wanted, in the humility to perceive that it was wanting, 
in the resolution that it should not be wanting when the 
time came that such knowledge or faculty should be 



PART II. 

LETTER 
II. 



Variety of 
disciplitie. 



Prepara- 
tion. 



02 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II 

LETTER 
II. 

Humboldt. 



LETTER 

III. 



Disinter- 
estedness. 



called for, one colossal figure so far excels all others 
that I cannot write down their names with that of 
Alexander Humboldt. The world sees the intellectual 
greatness of such a man, but does not see the sub- 
stantial moral basis on which the towering structure 
rose. When I think of his noble dissatisfaction with 
what he knew; his ceaseless eagerness to know more, 
and know it better ; of the rare combination of teach- 
ableness that despised no help (for he accepted without 
jealousy the aid of everybody who could assist him), with 
self-reliance that kept him always calm and observant in 
the midst of personal danger, I know not which is the 
more magnificent spectacle, the splendour of the intel- 
lectual light, or the beauty and solidity of the moral 
constitution that sustained it. 

LETTER III. 

TO A FRIEND WHO SUGGESTED THE SPECULATION " WHICH OF 
THE MORAL VIRTUES WAS MOST ESSENTIAL TO THE INTEL- 
LECTUAL LIFE." 

The most essential virtue is disinterestedness — The other virtues 
possessed by the opponents of intellectual liberty — The Ultramon- 
tane party — Difficulty of thinking disinterestedly even about the 
affairs of another nation — English newspapers do not write dis- 
interestedly about foreign affairs — Difficulty of disinterestedness 
in recent history — Poets and their readers feel it— Fine subjects 
for poetry in recent events not yet available — Even history of past 
times rarely disinterested — Advantages of the study of the dead 
languages in this respect — Physicians do not trust their own 
judgment about their personal health — The virtue consists in 
endeavouring to be disinterested. 

I think there cannot be a doubt that the most essential 
virtue is disinterestedness. 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



63 



Let me tell you, after this decided answer, what are 
the considerations which have led me to it. ,1 began by 
taking the other important virtues one by one — industry, 
perseverance, courage, discipline, humility, and the rest; 
and then asked myself whether any class of persons 
possessed and cultivated these virtues who were never- 
theless opposed to intellectual liberty. The answer 
came immediately, that there have in every age been 
men deservedly respected for these virtues who did all 
in their power to repress the free action of the intellect. 
What is called the Ultramontane party in the present 
day includes great numbers of talented adherents who 
are most industrious, most persevering, who willingly 
submit to the severest discipline — who are learned, 
self-denying, and humble enough to accept the most 
obscure and ill-requited duties. Some of these men 
possess nine-tenths of the qualifications that are neces- 
sary to the highest intellectual life — they have brilliant 
gifts of nature ; they are well-educated ; they take a 
delight in the exercise of noble faculties, and yet instead 
of employing their time and talents to help the intel- 
lectual advancement of mankind, they do all in their 
power to retard it. They have many most respectable 
virtues, but one is wanting. They have industry, per- 
severance, discipline, but they have not disinterested- 
ness. 

I do not mean disinterestedness in its ordinary sense 
as the absence of selfish care about money. The Church 
of Rome has thousands of devoted servants who are 
content to labour in her cause for stipends so miserable 
that it is clear they have no selfish aim; whilst they 
abandon all those possibilities of fortune which exist 
for every active and enterprising layman. But their 



part 11. 

LETTER 
III. 

Virtues- 



The Ultra- 
moutanes. 



One virtue 
•wanting. 



6 4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
III. 



The habit of 
advocacy 



Partisans. 



thinking can never be disinterested so long as their 
ruling motive is devotion to the interests of their Church. 
Some of them are personally known to me, and we have 
discussed together many of the greatest questions which 
agitate the continental nations at the present time. They 
have plenty of intellectual acumen ; but whenever the 
discussion touches, however remotely, the ecclesiastical 
interests that are dear to them, they cease to be observers — 
they become passionate advocates. It is this habit of 
advocacy which debars them from all elevated specula- 
tion about the future of the human race, and which so 
often induces them to take a side with incapable and 
retrograde governments, too willingly overlooking their 
deficiencies in the expectation of services to the cause. 
Their predecessors have impeded, as far as they were 
able, the early growth of science — not for intellectual 
reasons, but because they instinctively felt that there was 
something in the scientific spirit not favourable to those 
interests which they placed far above the knowledge of 
mere matter. 

I have selected the Ultramontane party in the Church 
of Rome as the most prominent example of a party 
eminent for many intellectual virtues, and yet opposed 
to the intellectual life from its own want of disinterested- 
ness. But the same defect exists, to some degree, in 
every partisan — exists in you and me so far as we are 
partisans. Let us suppose, for example, that we desired 
to find out the truth about a question much agitated in a 
neighbouring country at the present time — the question 
whether it would be better for that country to attempt the 
restoration of its ancient Monarchy or to try to consoli- 
date a Republican form of government. How difficult it is 
to think out such a problem disinterestedly, and yet how 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



65 



necessary to the justice of our conclusions that we should 
think disinterestedly if we pretend to think at all ! It is 
true that we have one circumstance in our favour — we 
are not French subjects, and this is much. Still we are 
not disinterested, since we know that the settlement of 
a great political problem such as this, even though on 
foreign soil, cannot fail to have a powerful influence on 
opinion in our own country, and consequently upon the 
institutions of our native land. We are spectators only, 
it is true ; but we are far from being disinterested 
spectators. And if you desire to measure the exact 
degree to which we are interested in the result, you need 
only look at the newspapers. The English newspapers 
always treat French affairs from the standpoint of their 
own party. The Conservative journalist in England is 
a Monarchist in France, and has no hopes for the 
Republic; the Liberal journalist in England believes 
that the French dynasties are used up, and sees no 
chance of tranquillity outside of republican institutions. 
In both cases there is an impediment to the intellectual 
appreciation of the problem. 

This difficulty is so strongly felt by those who write 
and read the sort of literature which aspires to per- 
manence, and which, therefore, ought to have a sub- 
stantial intellectual basis, that either our distinguished 
poets choose their subjects in actions long past and 
half forgotten, or else, when tempted by present excite- 
ment, they produce work which is artistically far inferior 
to their best. Our own generation has witnessed three 
remarkable events which are poetical in the highest 
degree. The conquest of the Two Sicilies by Garibaldi 
is a most perfect subject for a heroic poem; the events 
which led to the execution of the Emperor Maximilian 



part 11. 

LETTER 
III. 



Interested 
spectators. 



Journalists. 



Subjects for 
poems. 



66 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART ll. 

LETTER 
III. 

Recent 

subjects for 
poems. 



Historians. 



A rtists. 



Dead 
languages. 



and deprived his Empress of reason, would, "in the hands 
of a great dramatist, afford the finest possible material 
for a tragedy ; the invasion of France by the Germans, 
the overthrow of Napoleon III., the siege of Paris, are 
an epic ready to hand that only awaits its Homer ; yet, 
with the exception of Victor Hugo, who is far gone in 
intellectual decadence, no great poet has sung of these 
things yet. The subjects are as good as can be, but too 
near. Neither poet nor leader is disinterested enough 
for the intellectual enjoyment of these subjects : the 
poet would not see his way clearly, the reader would 
not follow unreservedly. 

It may be added, however, in this connection, that 
even past history is hardly ever written disinterestedly. 
Historians write with one eye on the past and the other 
on the pre-occupations of the present. So far as they 
do this they fall short of the intellectual standard. An 
ideally perfect history would tell the pure truth, and all 
the truth, so far as it was ascertainable. 

Artists are seldom good critics of art, because their 
own practice biasses them, and they are not disinterested. 
The few artists who have written soundly about art have 
succeeded in the difficult task of detaching saying from 
doing ; they have, in fact, become two distinct persons, 
each oblivious of the other. 

The strongest of all the reasons in favour of the study 
of the dead languages and the literatures preserved in 
them, has always appeared to me to consist in the more 
perfect disinterestedness with which we moderns can 
approach them. The men and events are separated from 
us by so wide an interval, not only of time and locality, 
but especially of modes of thought, that our passions are 
not often enlisted, and the intellect is sufficiently free. 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



67 



LETTER 
III. 



Medical 
men. 



It may be noted that medical men, who are a scien- 1 part ii 
tine class, and therefore more than commonly aware of 
the great importance of disinterestedness in intellectual 
action, never trust their own judgment when they feel 
the approaches of disease. They know that it is difficult 
for a man, however learned in medicine, to arrive at 
accurate conclusions about the state of a human body 
that concerns him so nearly as his own, even although 
the person who suffers has the advantage of actually 
experiencing the morbid sensations. 

To all this you may answer that intellectual disin- 
terestedness seems more an accident of situation than! 
a virtue. The virtue is not to have it, but to seek it 
in all earnestness ; to be ready to accept the truth even 
when it is most unfavourable to ourselves. I can illus- 
trate my meaning by a reference to a matter of every- 
day experience. There are people who cannot bear to 
look into their own accounts from a dread that the clear 
revelation of figures may be less agreeable to them than 
the illusions which they cherish. There are others who 
possess a kind of virtue which enables them to see their 
own affairs as clearly as if they had no personal interest 
in them. The weakness of the first is one of the most 
fatal of intellectual weaknesses ; the mental independence 
of the second is one of the most desirable of intellectual 
qualities. The endeavour to attain it, or to strengthen 
it, is a great virtue, and of all the virtues the one most 
indispensable to the nobility of the intellectual life. 



Ths virtue 
of trying 
to bg dis- 
intsrested. 



Note. — The reader may feel some surprise that I have not 
mentioned honesty as an important intellectual virtue. Honesty is 
of great importance, no doubt, but it appears to be (as to practical 
effects) included in disinterestedness, and to be less comprehensively 
useful. There is no reason to suspect the honesty of many political 



Honesty. 



68 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
III 



LETTER 
IV. 



The author 

not 
polemical- 



and theological partisans, yet their honesty does not preserve them 
from the worst intellectual habits, such as the habit of "begging the 
question," of misrepresenting the arguments on the opposite side, of 
shutting their eyes to eveiy fact which is not perfectly agreeable to 
them. The truth is, that mere honesty, though a most respectable 
and necessary virtue, goes a very little way towards the forming of an 
effective intellectual character. It is valuable rather in the relations 
of the intellectual man to the outer world around him, and even here 
it is dangerous unless tempered by discretion. A perfect disinter- 
estedness would ensure the best effects of honesty, and yet avoid some 
serious evils, against which honesty is not, in itself, a safeguard. 



LETTER IV 

TO A MORALIST WHO SAID THAT INTELLECTUAL CULTURE WAS 
NOT CONDUCIVE TO SEXUAL MORALITY. 

That the Author does not write in the spirit of advocacy— Two 
different kinds of immorality— Byron and Shelley — A peculiar 
temptation for the intellectual — A distinguished foreign writer — 
Reaction to coarseness from over-refinement — Danger of intel- 
lectual excesses — Moral utility of culture — The most cultivated 
classes at the same time the most moral— That men of high 
intellectual aims have an especially strong reason for morality — 
M. Taine's opinion. 

A critic in one of the quarterlies once treated me as a 
feeble defender of my opinions, because I gave due con- 
sideration to both sides of a question. He said that, 
like a wise commander, I capitulated beforehand in case 
my arguments did not come up for my relief; nay, more, 
that I gave up my arms in unconditional surrender. To 
this let me answer, that I have nothing to do with the 
polemical method, that I do not look upon an opponent 
as an enemy to be repelled, but as a torch-bearer to 
be welcomed for any light that he may bring ; that 1 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



69 



defend nothing, but try to explore everything that lies 
near enough. 

You need not expect me, therefore, to defend very 
vigorously the morality of the intellectual life. An 
advocate could do it brilliantly; there are plenty of 
materials, but so clumsy an advocate as your present 
correspondent would damage the best of causes by un- 
seasonable indiscretions. So I begin by admitting that 
your accusations are most of them well founded. Many 
intellectual people have led immoral lives, others have 
led lives which, although in strict conformity to their own 
theories of morality, were in opposition to the morality of 
their country and their age. Byron is a good instance 
of the first, and Shelley of the second. Byron was really 
and knowingly immoral ; Shelley, on the other hand, 
hated what he considered to be immorality, and lived a 
life as nearly as possible in accordance with the moral 
ideal in his own conscience ; still he did not respect the 
moral rule of his country, but lived with Mary Godwin, 
whilst Harriet, his first wife, was still alive. There is a 
clear distinction between the two cases ; yet both have the 
defect that the person takes in hand the regulation of 
his own morality, which it is hardly safe for anyone to 
do, considering the prodigious force of passion. 

I find even in the lives of intellectual people a peculiar 
temptation to immorality from which others are exempt. 
It is in their nature to feel an eager desire for intellectual 
companionship, and yet at the same time to exhaust very 
rapidly whatever is congenial to them in the intellect of 
their friends. They feel a strong intellectual attraction 
to persons of the opposite sex; and the idea of living 
with a person whose conversation is believed at the time 
to promise an increasing interest, is attractive in ways of 



PART 11. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Immorality 

0/ the 
intellectual. 



Byron- 
Shelley. 



A 
distinction. 



A peculiar 
temptation. 



70 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
IV. 

A foreign 
writer. 



Danger of 

these 

changes. 



Reaction 
frojn over- 
refinement- 



which those who have no such wants can scarcely form a 
conception. A most distinguished foreign writer, of the 
female sex, has made a succession of domestic arrange- 
ments which, if generally imitated by others, would be 
subversive of any conceivable system of morality ; and 
yet it is clear in this case that the temptation was chiefly, 
if not entirely, intellectual. The successive companions 
of this remarkable woman were all of them men of ex- 
ceptional intellectual power, and her motive for changing 
them was an unbridled intellectual curiosity. 

This is the sort of immorality to which cultivated 
people are most exposed. It is dangerous to the well- 
being of a community because it destroys the sense of 
security on which the idea of the family is founded. If 
we are to leave our wives when their conversation ceases 
to be interesting, the foundations of the home will be 
unsafe. If they are to abandon us when we are dull, 
to go away with some livelier and more talkative com- 
panion, can we ever hope to retain them permanently ? 

There is another danger which must be looked fairly 
in the face. When the lives of men are refined beyond 
the. real needs of their organization, Nature is very apt 
to bring about the most extraordinary reactions. Thus 
the most exquisitely delicate artists . in literature and 
painting have frequently had reactions of incredible 
coarseness. Within the Chateaubriand of Atala there 
existed an obscene Chateaubriand that would burst forth 
occasionally in talk that no biographer could repeat. I 
have heard the same thing of the sentimental Lamartine. 
We know that Turner, dreamer of enchanted landscapes, 
took the pleasures of a sailor on the spree. A friend 
said to me of one of the most exquisite living geniuses : 
"You can have no conception of the coarseness of his 



THE MORAL BASIS. 



71 



tastes; he associates with the very lowest women, and 
enjoys their rough brutality." 

These cases only prove, what I have always willingly 
admitted, that the intellectual life is not free from certain 
dangers if we lead it too exclusively. Intellectual ex- 
cesses, by the excitement which they communicate to 
the whole system, have a direct tendency to drive men 
into other excesses, and a too great refinement in one 
direction may produce degrading reactions in another. 
Still the cultivation of the mind, reasonably pursued, is, 
on the whole, decidedly favourable to morality j and we 
may easily understand that it should be so, when we 
remember that people have recourse to sensual indul- 
gences simply from a desire for excitement, whilst intel- 
lectual pursuits supply excitement of a more innocent 
kind and in the utmost variety and abundance. If, 
instead of taking a few individual instances, you broadly 
observe whole classes, you will recognize the moral utility 
of culture. The most cultivated classes in our own country 
are also the most moral, and these classes have advanced 
in morality at the same time that they have advanced 
in culture. English gentlemen of the present day are 
superior to their forefathers whom Fielding described; 
they are better educated, and they read more ; they are 
at the same time both more sober and more chaste. 

I may add that intellectual men have peculiar and 
most powerful reasons for avoiding the excesses of im- 
morality, reasons which to anyone who has a noble am- 
bition are quite enough to encourage him in self-control. 
Those excesses are the gradual self-destruction of the 
intellectual forces, for they weaken the spring of the 
mind, not leaving it will enough to face the drudgery 
that is inevitable in every career. Even in cases where 



PART 11. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Excesses 

and 
reactions. 



Culture still 
favourable 
to morality. 



English 

gentlemen* 



Reasons fot 

morality. , 



72 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART II. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Importance 

of small 
advantages. 



Self- 
government 

for 

ambition. 



Effects of 
immorality. 



they do not immediately lead to visible imbecility, they 
make the man less efficient and less capable than 
he might have been ; and all experienced wrestlers 
with fate and fortune know well that -success has often, 
at the critical time, depended upon some very trifling 
advantage which the slightest diminution of power would 
have lost to them. No one knows the full immensity of 
the difference between having power enough to make a 
little headway against obstacles, and just falling short 
of the power which is necessary at the time. In every 
great intellectual career there are situations like that of a 
steamer with a storm-wind directly against her and an 
iron-bound coast behind. If the engines are strong 
enough to gain an inch an hour she is safe, but if they 
lose there is no hope. Intellectual successes are so 
rewarding that they are worth any sacrifice of pleasure ; 
the sense of defeat is so humiliating that fair Venus herself 
could not offer a consolation for it. An ambitious man 
will govern himself for the sake of his ambition, and 
withstand the seductions of the senses. Can he be ever 
strong enough, can his brain ever be lucid enough for 
the immensity of the task before him ? 

" Le jeune homme," says M. Taine, " ignore qu'il n'y a 
pas de pire deperdition de forces, que de tels commerces 
abaissent le cceur, qu'apres dix ans d'une vie pareille il 
aura perdu la moitie de sa volonte, que ses pensees 
auront un arriere-gout habituel d'amertume et de tris- 
tesse, que son ressort interieur sera amolli ou fausse. 
II s'excuse a ses propres yeux, en se disant qu'un homme 
doit tout toucher pour tout connaitre. De fait, il apprend 
la vie, mais bien souvent aussi il perd l'eiiergie, la chaleur 
d'ame, la capacite d'agir, et a trente ans il n'est plus bon 
qu'a faire un employe, un dilettante, ou un rentier." 



PART III. 



OF EDUCATION, 



LETTER L 

TO A FRIEND WHO RECOMMENDED THE AUTHOR TO LEARN 
THIS THING AND THAT. 



Lesson learned from a cook — The ingredients of knowledge — Impor- 
tance of proportion in the ingredients — Case of an English 
author — Two landscape painters — The unity and charm of cha- 
racter often dependent upon the limitations of culture — The 
burden of knowledge may diminish the energy of action — 
Difficulty of suggesting a safe rule for the selection of our know- 
ledge — Men qualified for their work by ignorance as well as by 
knowledge — Men remarkable for the extent of their studies — 
Franz Wcepke — Goethe — Hebrew proverb. 

I happened one day to converse with an excellent 
French cook about the delicate art which he professed, 
and he comprised the whole of it under two heads — the 
knowledge of the mutual influences of ingredients, and 
the judicious management of heat. It struck me that 
there existed a very close analogy between cookery 
and education; and, on following out the subject in my 
own way, I found that what he told me suggested several 
considerations of the very highest importance in the 
culture of the human intellect. 



PART I IT. 

LETTER 
I. 



Cookery and 
education. 



74 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 



A French 
dish. 



Hciv it was 
spoiled. 



Mental 
chemistry. 



Amongst the dishes for which my friend had a de- 
served reputation was a certain gateau de foie which had 
a very exquisite flavour. The principal ingredient, not 
in quantity but in power, was the liver of a fowl ; but 
there were several other ingredients also, and amongst 
these a leaf or two of parsley. He told me that the 
influence of the parsley was a good illustration of his 
theory about his art. If the parsley were omitted, the 
flavour he aimed at was not produced at all ; but, on the 
other hand, if the quantity of parsley was in the least 
excessive, then the gateau instead of being a delicacy for 
gourmets became an uneatable mess. Perceiving that 
I was really interested in the subject, he kindly pro- 
mised a practical evidence of his doctrine, and the next 
clay intentionally spoiled his dish by a trifling addition 
of parsley. He had not exaggerated the consequences ; 
the delicate flavour entirely departed, and left a nauseous 
bitterness in its place, like the remembrance of an ill- 
spent youth. 

And so it is, I thought, with the different ingredients 
of knowledge which are so eagerly and indiscriminately 
recommended. We are told that we ought to learn this 
thing and that, as if every new ingredient did not 
affect the whole flavour of the mind. There is a sort 
of intellectual chemistry which is quite as marvellous 
as material chemistry, and a thousand times more diffi- 
cult to observe. One general truth may, however, be 
relied upon as surely and permanently our own. It is 
true that everything we learn affects the whole character 
of the mind. 

Consider how incalculably important becomes the 
question of proportion in our knowledge, and how that 
which we are is dependent as much upon our ignorance 



OF EDUCATION. 



75 



as our science. What we call ignorance is only a smaller 
proportion — what we call science only a larger. The 
larger quantity is recommended as an unquestionable 
good, but the goodness of it is entirely dependent on 
the mental product that we want. Aristocracies have 
always instinctively felt this, and have decided that a 
gentleman ought not to know too much of certain arts 
and sciences. The character which they had accepted 
as their ideal would have been destroyed by indis- 
criminate additions to those ingredients of which long 
experience had fixed the exact proportions. The same 
feeling is strong in the various professions : there is an 
apprehension that the disproportionate knowledge may 
destroy the professional nature. The less intelligent 
members of the profession will tell you that they dread 
an unprofessional use of time ; but the more thoughtful 
are not so apprehensive about hours and days, they 
dread that sure transformation of the whole intellect 
which follows every increase of knowledge. 

I knew an English author who by great care and 
labour had succeeded in forming a style which har- 
monized quite perfectly with the character of his think- 
ing, and served as an unfailing means of communica- 
tion with his readers. Everyone recognized its simple 
ease and charm, and he might have gone on writing with 
that enviable facility had he not determined to study 
Locke's philosophical compositions. Shortly afterwards 
my friend's style suddenly lost its grace ; he began to write 
with difficulty, and what he wrote was unpleasantly diffi- 
cult to read. Even the thinking was no longer his own 
thinking. Having been in too close communication with 
a writer who was not a literary artist, his own art had 
deteriorated in consequence. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
I. 

Proportion 

in 
knowledge. 



Professional 
feeling. 



Effect of 
reading. 



7 6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 



Two 
landscape 
J>ai?Uers. 



Unproduc- 
tive 
characters^ 



I could mention an English landscape painter who 
diminished the pictorial excellence of his works by 
taking too much interest in geology. His landscapes 
became geological illustrations, and no longer held 
together pictorially. Another landscape painter, who 
began by taking a healthy delight in the beauty of 
natural scenery, became morbidly religious after an ill- 
ness, and thenceforth passed by the loveliest European 
scenery as comparatively unworthy of his attention, to 
go and make ugly pictures of places that had sacred 
associations. 

For people who produce nothing these risks appear to 
be less serious ; and yet there have been admirable cha- 
racters, not productive, whose admirableness might have 
been lessened by the addition of certain kinds of learn- 
ing. The last generation of the English country aristo- 
cracy was particularly rich in characters whose unity and 
charm was dependent upon the limitations of theii 
culture, and which would have been entirely altered, 
perhaps not for the better, by simply knowing a science 
or a literature that was closed to them. 

Abundant illustrations might be collected in evidence 
of the well known truth that the burden of knowledge 
may diminish the energy of action ; but this is rather 
outside of what we are considering, which is the influence 
of knowledge upon the intellectual and not the active life. 
I regret very much not to be able to suggest anything 
like a safe rule for the selection of our knowledge. The 
most rational one which has been hit upon as yet appears 
to be a simple confidence in the feeling that we in- 
wardly want to know. If I feel the inward want for a 
certain kind of knowledge, it may perhaps be presumed 
that it would be good for me ; but even this feeling is 



OF EDUCATION. 



77 



not perfectly reliable, since people are often curious about 
things that do not closely concern them, whilst they 
neglect what it is most important for them to ascertain. 
All that I venture to insist upon is, that we cannot learn 
any new thing without changing our whole intellectual 
composition as a chemical compound is changed by 
another ingredient ; that the mere addition of knowledge 
may be good for us or bad for us ; and that whether it 
will be good or bad is usually a more obscure problem 
than the enthusiasm of educators will allow. That de- 
pends entirely on the work we have to do. Men are 
qualified for their work by knowledge, but they are also 
negatively qualified for it by their ignorance. Nature 
herself appears to take care that the workman shall not 
know too much— she keeps him steadily to his task ; 
fixes him in one place mentally if not corporeally, and 
conquers his restlessness by fatigue. As we are bound 
to a little planet, and hindered by impassable gulfs of 
space from wandering in stars where we have no busi- 
ness, so we are kept by the force of circumstances to the 
limited studies that belong to us. If we have any kind 
of efficiency, very much of it is owing to our narrowness, 
which is favourable to a powerful individuality. 

Sometimes, it is true, we meet with instances of men 
remarkable for the extent of their studies. Franz Wcepke, 
who died in 1864, was an extraordinary example of this 
kind. In the course of a short life he became, although 
unknown, a prodigy of various learning. His friend 
M. Taine says that he was erudite in many eruditions. 
His favourite pursuit was the history of mathematics, 
but as auxiliaries he had learned Arabic, and Persian, 
and Sanskrit. He was classically educated, he wrote 
and spoke the principal modern languages easily and 



PART I If. 

LKTTER 
I. 



Addition of 

knowledge 

may be good 

or bad. 



Nature 
keeps us to 
our tasks. 



Franz 
Woepke* 



73 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART III. 

LETTER 
I. 



Difficulty of 
restriction. 



correctly; 1 his printed works are in three languages. 
He had lived in several nations, and known their lead- 
ing men of science. And yet this astonishing list of 
acquirements may be reduced to the exercise of two 
decided natural tastes. Franz Wcepke had the gift of 
the linguist and an interest in mathematics, the first 
serving as auxiliary to the second. 

Goethe said that "a vast abundance of objects must 
lie before us ere we can think upon them." Wcepke felt 
the need of this abundance, but he did not go out of his 
way to find it. The objectionable seeking after know- 
ledge is the seeking after the knowledge which does not 
belong to us. In vain you urge me to go in quest of 
sciences for which I have no natural aptitude. Would 
you have me act like that foolish camel in the Hebrew 
proverb, which in going to seek horns lost his ears ? 

LETTER II. 

TO A FRIEND WHO STUDIED MANY THINGS. 

Men cannot restrict themselves in learning — Description of a Latin 
scholar of two generations since — What is attempted by a cultivated 
contemporary — Advantages of a more restricted field— Privilege 
of instant admission — Many pursuits cannot be kept up simulta- 
neously — The deterioration of knowledge through neglect — What 
it really is — The only available knowledge that which we habi- 
tually use — Difficulty in modern education — That it is inevitably 
a beginning of many things and no more — The simpler education 
of an ancient Greek — That of Alcibiades — How the Romans were 
situated as to this — The privilege of limited studies belongs to 
the earlier ages — They learned and we attempt to learn. 

It appears to be henceforth inevitable that men should 
be unable to restrict themselves to one or two pursuits, 

1 According to M, Taine. I have elsewhere expressed a doubt 
about polyglots. 



OF EDUCATION. 



79 



and you, who are in most respects a very perfect specimen 
of what the age naturally produces in the way of culture, 
have studied subjects so many and so various that a mere 
catalogue of them would astonish your grandfather if his 
shade could revisit his old home. And yet your grand- 
father was considered a very highly cultivated gentleman 
according to the ideas and requirements of his time. He 
was an elegant scholar, but in Latin chiefly, for he said 
that he never read Greek easily, and indeed he abandoned 
that language entirely on leaving the University. But his 
Latin, from daily use and practice (for he let no day slip 
by without reading some ancient author) and from the 
thoroughness and accuracy of his scholarship, was always 
as ready for service as the saddled steeds of Branksome. 
I think he got more culture, more of the best effects of 
good literature, out of that one language than some poly- 
glots get out of a dozen. He knew no modern tongue, 
he had not even the common pretension to read a little 
French, and in his day hardly anybody studied German. 
He had no scientific training of any kind except mathe- 
matics, in which I have heard him say that he had never 
been proficient. Of the fine arts his ignorance was com- 
plete, so complete that I doubt if he could have distin- 
guished Rigaud from Reynolds, and he had never played 
upon any musical instrument. The leisure which he 
enjoyed during a long and tranquil existence he gave 
entirely to Latin and English literature, but of the two 
he enjoyed Latin the more, not with the preference of a 
pedant, but because it carried him more completely out 
of the present, and gave him the refreshment of a more 
perfect change. He produced on all who knew him the 
impression of a cultivated gentleman, which he was. 
There is only an interval of one generation between 



PART III. 

LETTER 
II. 



A portrait. 



8o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
II. 



A equip- 
ments of a 
modern. 



Subdivision 
of time. 



A dvantages 

of 

restriction. 



you and that good Latinist, but how wide is the differ- 
ence in your intellectual regimen ! You have studied — 
well, here is a little list of what you have studied, and 
probably even this is not complete : — 

Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, mathematics, 
chemistry, mineralogy, geology, botany, the theory of 
music, the practice of music on two instruments, much 
theory about painting, the practice of painting in oil 
and water-colour, photography, etching on copper, &c. 
&c. &c. 

That is to say, six literatures (including English), six 
sciences (counting mineralogy and geology as one), and 
five branches or departments of the fine arts. 

Omitting English literature from our total, as that may 
be considered to come by nature to an Englishman, 
though any real proficiency in it costs the leisure of years, 
we have here no less than sixteen different pursuits. If 
you like to merge the theory of music and painting in 
the practice of those arts, though as a branch of study 
the theory is really distinct, we have still fourteen pursuits, 
any one of which is enough to occupy the whole of one 
man's time. If you gave some time daily to each of 
these pursuits, you could scarcely give more than half 
an hour, even supposing that you had no professional 
occupation, and that you had no favourite study, 
absorbing time to the detriment of the rest. 

Now your grandfather, though he would be considered 
quite an ignorant country gentleman in these days, had 
in reality certain intellectual advantages over his more 
accomplished descendant. In the first place, he entirely 
escaped the sense of pressure, the feeling of not having 
time enough to do what he wanted to do. He accumu- 
lated his learning as quietly as a stout lady accumulates 



OF EDUCATION. 



81 



her fat, by the daily satisfaction of his appetite. And at 
the same time that he escaped the sense of pressure, he 
escaped also the miserable sense of imperfection. Of 
course he did not know Latin like an ancient Roman, but 
then he never met with any ancient Romans to humiliate 
him by too rapid and half-intelligible conversation. He 
met the best Latinists of his day ; and felt himself a 
master amongst masters. Every time he went into his 
study, to pass delightful hours with the noble authors 
that he loved, he knew that his admission into that 
august society would be immediate and complete. He 
had to wait in no antechamber of mere linguistic difficulty, 
but passed at once into the atmosphere of ancient thought, 
and breathed its delicate perfume. In this great privilege 
of instant admission the man of one study has always 
the advantage of men more variously cultivated. Their 
misfortune is to be perpetually waiting in antechambers, 
and losing time in them. Grammars and dictionaries are 
antechambers, bad drawing and bad colouring are ante- 
chambers, musical practice with imperfect intonation is 
an antechamber. And the worst is that even when a 
man, like yourself for instance, of very various culture, 
has at one time fairly penetrated beyond the antechamber, 
he is not sure of admittance a year hence, because in the 
meantime the door may have been closed against him. 
The rule of each separate hall or saloon of knowledge is 
that he alone is to be instantly admitted who calls there 
every day. 

The man of various pursuits does not, in any case, 
keep them up simultaneously ; he is led by inclination or 
compelled by necessity to give predominance to one or 
another. If you have fifteen different pursuits, ten of 
them, at any given time, will be lying by neglected 



PART III. 

LETTER 
II. 



Instant 
admission- 



A nte- 
chambers* 



Difficulty 
of keeping 
up many 
pttrsuits. 



82 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART in. 

LETTER 
II. 

Rust. 



Disorgan- 
ization. 



Effects of 
neglect. 



A vailable 
knowledge. 



The metaphor commonly used in reference to neglected 
pursuits is borrowed from the oxidation of metal ; it is 
said that they become rusty. This metaphor is too mild 
to be exact. Rust on metal, even on polished steel, is 
easily guarded against by care, and a gun or a knife does 
not need to be constantly used to keep it from being 
pitted. The gunsmith and the cutler know how to keep 
these things, in great quantity, without using them at all. 
But no one can retain knowledge without using 'it. The 
metaphor fails still more seriously in perpetuating a false 
conception of the deterioration of knowledge through 
neglect. It is not simply a loss of polish which takes 
place, not a loss of mere surface-beauty, but absolute 
disorganization, like the disorganization of a carriage 
when the axle-tree is taken away. A rusty thing may 
still be used, but a disorganized thing cannot be used 
until the lost organ has been replaced. There is no 
equivalent, amongst ordinary material losses, to the intel- 
lectual loss that we incur by ceasing from a pursuit. 
But we may consider neglect as an enemy who carries 
away the girths from our saddles, the bits from our bridles, 
the oars from our boats, and one wheel from each of our 
carriages, leaving us indeed still nominally possessors of 
all these aids to locomotion, but practically in the same 
position as if we were entirely without them. And as an 
enemy counts upon the delays caused by these vexations 
to execute his designs whilst we are helpless, so whilst 
we are labouring to replace the lost parts of our know- 
ledge the occasion slips by when we most need it. The 
only knowledge which is available when it is wanted is 
that which we habitually use. Studies which from their 
nature cannot be commonly used are always retained 
with great difficulty. The study of anatomy is perhaps 






OF EDUCATION. 



83 



PART IIL 

LETTER 

II. 

Anatomy. 



the best instance of this • every one who has attempted 
it knows with what difficulty it is kept by the memory. 
Anatomists say that it has to be learned and forgotten 
six times before it can be counted upon as a possession. 
This is because anatomy lies so much outside of what is 
needed for ordinary life that very few people are ever 
called upon to use it except during the hours when they 
are actually studying it. The few who need it every day 
remember it as easily as a man remembers the language 
of the country which he inhabits. The workmen in the 
establishment at Saint Aubin d'Ecroville, where Dr. 
Auzoux manufactures his wonderful anatomical models, 
are as familiar with anatomy as a painter is with the 
colours on his palette. They never forget it. Their 
knowledge is never made practically valueless by some 
yawning hiatus, causing temporary incompetence and delay. 

To have one favourite study and live in it with happy 
familiarity, and cultivate every portion of it diligently 
and lovingly, as a small yeoman proprietor cultivates his 
own land, this, as to study at least, is the most enviable 
intellectual life. But there is another side to the question 
which has to be considered. 

The first difficulty for us is in our education. Modern Education a 
education is a beginning of many things, and it is little ^JSJ V 
more than a beginning. " My notion of educating my thin ^- 
boy," said a rich Englishman, "is not to make him 
particularly clever at anything during his minority, but to 
make him overcome the rudimentary difficulties of many 
things, so that when he selects for himself his own line of 
culture in the future, it cannot be altogether strange to him, 
whatever line he may happen to select." A modern 
father usually allows his son to learn many things from a 
feeling of timidity about making a choice, if only one thing 

G 2 



8 4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
II. 



Greek 
education 



Alcibiades- 



Education of 
A Icibiades 



had to be chosen. He might so easily make a wrong choice ! 
When the inheritance of the human race was less rich, 
there was no embarrassment of that kind. Look at the 
education of an ancient Greek, at the education of one of 
the most celebrated Athenians, a man living in the most 
refined and intellectual society, himself mentally and 
bodily the perfect type of his splendid race, an eloquent 
and powerful speaker, a most capable commander both 
by sea and land — look at the education of the brilliant 
Alcibiades ! When Socrates gave the list of the things that 
Alcibiades had learned, Alcibiades could add to it no 
other even nominal accomplishment, and what a meagre, 
short catalogue it was ! " But indeed I also pretty accu- 
rately know what thou hast learned ; thou wilt tell me if 
anything has escaped my notice. Thou hast learned then 
thy letters (ypcififxara), to play on the cithara (KiQapi£eiv), 
and to wrestle (iraXcuW), for thou hast not cared to learn 
to play upon the flute. This is all that thou hast learned, 
unless something has escaped me." The ypd^fiara which 
Alcibiades had learned with a master meant reading and 
writing, for he expressly says later on, that as for speaking 
Greek, iXkrivi&iv, he learned that of no other master than 
the people. An English education equivalent to that of 
Alcibiades would therefore consist of reading and writing, 
wrestling, and guitar-playing, the last accomplishment 
being limited to very simple music. Such an education 
was possible to an Athenian (though it is fair to add that 
Socrates does not seem to have thought much of it) 
because a man situated as Alcibiades was situated in the 
intellectual history of the world, had no past behind him 
which deserved his attention more than the present 
which surrounded him. Simply to speak Greek, lAXq^etv, 
was really then the most precious of all accomplishments, 



OF EDUCATION. 



85 



and the fact that Alcibiades came by it easily does not 
lessen its value. Amongst a people like the Athenians, 
fond of intellectual talk, conversation was one of the best 
and readiest means of informing the mind, and certainly 
the very best means of developing it. It was not a 
slight advantage to speak the language of Socrates, and 
have him for a companion. 

The cleverest and most accomplished Romans were 
situated rather more like ourselves, or at least as we 
should be situated if we had not to learn Latin and 
Greek, and if there were no modern language worth 
studying except French. They went to Greece to perfect 
themselves in Greek, and improve their accent, just as 
our young gentlemen go to Paris or Touraine. Still, the 
burden of the past was comparatively light upon their 
shoulders. An Englishman who had attempted no more 
than they were bound to attempt might be a scholar, 
but he would not be considered so. He might be a 
thorough scholar in French and English,- — that is, he 
might possess the cream of two great literatures, — but he 
would be spoken of as a person of defective education. 
It is the fashion, for example, to speak of Sir Walter 
Scott as a half-educated man, because he did not know 
much Greek, yet Sir Walter had studied German with 
success, and with his habit of extensive reading, and 
his immense memory, certainly knew incomparably more 
about the generations which preceded him than Horace 
knew of those which preceded the Augustan era. 

The privilege of limiting their studies, from the begin- 
ning, to one or two branches of knowledge, belonged to 
earlier ages, and every successive accumulation of the 
world's knowledge has gradually lessened it. Schoolboys 
in our time are expected to know more, or to have 



PART III. 

LETTER 
II. 



Education 
of aficient 
Romans. 



The 
moderns* 



Limited 

studies a 

privilege 0/ 

earlier ages. 



86 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 



LETTER 
III. 



attempted to learn more, than the most brilliant intel- 
lectual leaders of former times. What English parent, 
in easy circumstances, would be content that his son 
should have the education of Alcibiades, or an education 
accurately corresponding to that of Horace, or to that 
which sufficed for Shakespeare ? Yet although the 
burdens laid upon the memory have been steadily 
augmented, its powers have not increased. Our brains 
are not better constituted than those of our forefathers, 
although where they learned one thing we attempt to 
learn six. They learned, and we attempt to learn. The 
only hope for us is to make a selection from the attempts 
of our too heavily burdened youth, and in those selected 
studies to emulate in after-life the thoroughness of our 
forefathers. 



LETTER III. 

TO A FRIEND WHO STUDIED MANY THINGS. 

An idealized portrait — The scholars of the sixteenth century — Isolated 
students — French students of English when isolated from Eng- 
lishmen — How one of them read Tennyson — Importance of 
sounds — Illusions of scholarship — Difficulty of appreciating the 
sense — That Latin may still be made a spoken language — The 
early education of Montaigne — A contemporary instance — Dream 
of a Latin island — Rapid corruption of a language taught 
artificially. 

In your answer to my letter about the multiplicity ot 
modern studies you tell me that my portrait of your 
grandfather is considerably idealized, and that, notwith- 
standing all the respect which you owe to his memory, 
you have convincing proof in his manuscript annotations 



OF EDUCATION. 



87 



to Latin authors that his scholarship cannot have been 
quite so thorough as I represented it. You convey, 
moreover, though with perfect modesty in form, the 
idea that you believe your own Latin superior to your 
grandfather's, notwithstanding the far greater variety of 
your studies. Let me confess that I did somewhat 
idealize that description of your grandfather's intellectual 
life. I described rather a life which might have been 
than a life which actually was. And even this " might 
x\ave been" is problematical. It may be doubted whether 
any modern has ever really mastered Latin. The most that 
can be said is that a man situated like your grandfather, 
without a profession, without our present temptation to 
scatter effort in many pursuits, and who made Latin 
scholarship his unique intellectual purpose, would pro- 
bably go nearer to a satisfactory degree of attainment 
than we whose time and strength have been divided into 
so many fragments. But the picture of a perfect modern 
Latinist is purely ideal, and the prevalent notion of high 
attainment in a dead language is not fixed enough to be 
a standard, whilst if it were fixed it would certainly be a 
very low standard. The scholars of this century do not 
write Latin except as a mere exercise ; they do not write 
books in Latin, and they never speak it at all. They do 
not use the language actively ; they only read it, which is 
not really using it, but only seeing how other men have 
used it. There is the same difference between reading a 
language and writing or speaking it that there is between 
looking at pictures intelligently and painting them.- The 
scholars of the sixteenth century' spoke Latin habitually, 
and wrote it with ease and fluency. " Nicholas Grouchy," 
says Montaigne, " who wrote a book de Comitiis Roma- 
norum; William Guerente, who has written a commentary 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 



An idealized 
portrait* 



Doubts. 



Habits of 
scholars. 



Scholars of 

the sixteenth 

century. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 



Their 

imperfect 

attainment. 



Isolated- 
students- 



upon Aristotle ; George Buchanan, that great Scotch 
poet ; and Marc Anthony Muret, whom both France and 
Italy have acknowledged for the best orator of his time, 
my domestic tutors (at college), have all of them often 
told me that I had in my infancy that language so very 
fluent and ready that they were afraid to enter into 
discourse with me." This passage is interesting for two 
reasons : it shows that the scholars of that age spoke 
Latin ; but it proves at the same time that they cannot 
have been really masters of the language, since they were 
" afraid to enter into discourse " with a clever child. 
Fancy an Englishman who professed to be a French 
scholar and yet "was afraid to enter into discourse" with 
a French boy, for fear he should speak too quickly ! 
The position of these scholars relatively to Latin was in 
fact too isolated for it to have been possible that they 
should reach the point of mastery. Suppose a society of 
Frenchmen, in some secluded little French village where 
no Englishman ever penetrates, and that these French- 
men learn English from dictionaries, and set themselves 
to speak English with each other, without anybody to 
teach them the colloquial language or its pronunciation, 
without ever once hearing the sound of it from English 
lips, what sort of English would they create amongst 
themselves? This is a question that I happen to be 
able to answer very accurately, because I have known 
two Frenchmen who studied English literature just as 
the Frenchmen of the sixteenth century studied the 
literature of ancient Rome. One of them, especially, 
had attained what would certainly in the case of a dead 
language be considered a very high degree of scholar- 
ship indeed. Most of our great authors were known 
to him, even down to the close critical comparison of 



OF EDUCATION. 



89 



different readings. Aided by the most powerful memory 
I ever knew, he had amassed such stores that the acqui- 
sitions, even of cultivated Englishmen, would in many 
cases have appeared inconsiderable beside them. But 
he could not write or speak English in a manner tolerable 
to an Englishman ; and although he knew nearly all the 
words in the language, it was dictionary knowledge, and 
so different from an Englishman's apprehension of the 
same words that it was only a sort of pseudo-English 
that he knew, and not our living tongue. His apprecia- 
tion of our authors, especially of our poets, differed so 
widely from English criticism and English feeling that it 
was evident he did not understand them as we under- 
stand them. Two things especially proved this: he 
frequently mistook declamatory versification of the most 
mediocre quality for poetry of an elevated order ; whilst, 
on the other hand, his ear failed to perceive the music of 
the musical poets, as Byron and Tennyson. How could 
he hear their music, he to whom our English sounds were 
all unknown ? Here, for example, is the way he read 
" Claribel : "— 



"At ev ze bittle bommess 

Azvart ze zeeket Ion 
At none ze veelcl be ommess 

Aboot ze most edston 
At meedneeg ze mon commess 

An lokez dovn alon 
Ere songg ze lintveet svelless 
Ze clirvoic-ed mavi dvelless 

Ze fledgling srost lispess 
Ze slombroos vav ootvelless 

Ze babblang ronnel creespess 
Ze ollov grot replee-ess 
Vere Claribel lovlee-ess." 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 



A French 
student 0/ 

English 
literature. 



How he read 
" Claribel: 1 



9o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART in. 

LETTER 
III. 



L at 17 1 
scholars. 



Ignorance of 
Latin 
sounds. 



Sound and 
sense. 



This, as nearly as I have been able to render it in 
English spelling, was the way in which a French gentle* 
man of really high culture was accustomed to read 
English poetry to himself. Is it surprising that he should 
have failed to appreciate the music of our musical verse ? 
He did not, however, seem to be aware that there existed 
any obstacle to the accuracy of his decisions, but gave 
his opinion with a good deal of authority, which might 
have surprised me had I not so frequently heard Latin 
scholars do exactly the same thing. My French friend 
read " Claribel " in a ridiculous manner ; but English 
scholars all read Latin poetry in a manner not less 
ridiculous. You laugh to hear " Claribel " read with a 
foreign pronunciation, and you see at once the absurdity 
of affecting to judge of it as poetry before the reader has 
learned to pronounce the sounds ; but you do not laugh to 
hear Latin poetry read with a foreign pronunciation, and 
you do not perceive that we are all of us disqualified,, 
by our profound ignorance of the pronunciation of the 
ancient Romans, for any competent criticism of their 
verse. In all poetry, in all oratory, in much of the best 
and most artistic prose-writing also, sound has a great 
influence upon sense : a great deal is conveyed by it, 
especially in the way of feeling. If we do not thoroughly 
know and practise the right pronunciation (and by the 
right pronunciation I mean that which the author himself 
thought in whilst he wrote), we miss those delicate tones 
and cadences which are in literature like the modulations 
of the voice in speech. Nor can we properly appreciate 
the artistic choice of beautiful names for persons and 
places unless we know the sounds of them quite accu- 
rately, and have already in our minds the associations 
belonging to the sounds. Names which are selected 






OF EDUCATION. 



9i 



with the greatest care by our English poets, and which 
hold their place like jewels on the finely-wrought texture 
of the verse, lose all their value when they are read with 
a vicious foreign pronunciation. So it must be with 
Latin poetry when read by an Englishman, and it is pro- 
bable that we are really quite insensible to the delicate [ 
art of verbal selection as it was practised by the most | 
consummate masters of antiquity. 

I know that scholars think that they hear the Roman 
music still ; but this is one of the illusions of scholar- 
ship. In each country Latin scholars have adopted a 
conventional style of reading, and the sounds which 
are in conformity with that style seem to them to be 
musical, whilst other than the accepted sounds seem 
ridiculous, and grate harshly on the unaccustomed ear. 
The music which the Englishman hears, or imagines 
that he hears, in the language of ancient Rome, is 
certainly not the music which the Roman authors in- 
tended to note in words. It is as if my Frenchman, 
having read "Claribel" in his own way, had affirmed 
that he heard the music of the verse. If he heard 
music at all, it was not Tennyson's. 

Permit me to add a few observations about sense. 
My French friend certainly understood English in a very 
remarkable manner for a student who had never visited 
our country ; he knew the dictionary meaning of every 
word he encountered, and yet there ever remained 
between him and our English tongue a barrier or wall of 
separation, hard to define, but easy to perceive. In the 
true deep sense he never understood the language. He 
studied it, laid regular siege to it, mastered it to all ap- 
pearance, yet remained, to the end, outside of it. His 
observations, and especially his unfavourable criticisms, 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 

Choice of 
tiames. 



Verbal 
selection. 



Illusions of 
scholarship. 



A barrier. 



92 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 
lit. 

Misappre- 
hensions. 



Latin might 
be a spoken 
language. 



proved this quite conclusively. Expressions often ap- 
peared to him faulty, in which no English reader would 
see anything to remark upon ; it may be added that (by 
way of compensation) he was unable Jto appreciate the 
oddity of those intentionally quaint turns of expression 
which are invented by the craft of humorists. It may 
even be doubted whether his English was of any ascer- 
tainable use to him. He might probably have come as 
near to an understanding of our authors by the help 
of translations, and he could not converse in English, 
for the spoken language was entirely unintelligible to 
him. An acquisition of this kind seems scarcely an 
adequate reward for the labour that it costs. Com- 
pared with living Englishmen my French friend was 
nowhere, but if English had been a dead language, 
he would have been looked up to as a very eminent 
scholar, and would have occupied a professor's chair in 
the university. 

A little more life might be given to the study of Latin 
by making it a spoken language. Boys might be taught 
to speak Latin in their schooldays with the modern 
Roman pronunciation, which, though probably a deviation 
from the ancient, is certainly nearer to it than our own. If 
colloquial Latin were made a subject of special research, 
it is likely that a sufficiently rich phrase-book might be 
constructed from the plays. If this plan were pursued 
throughout Europe (always adopting the Roman pronun- 
ciation) all educated men would possess a common tongue 
which might be enriched to suit modern requirements 
without any serious departure from classical construction. 
The want of such a system as this was painfully felt at 
the council of the Vatican, where the assembled prelates 
discovered that their Latin was of no practical use, 



OF EDUCATION. 



93 



although the Roman Catholic clergy employ Latin more 
habitually than any other body of men in the world. 
That a modern may be taught to think in Latin, is 
proved by the early education of Montaigne, and I may 
mention a much more recent instance. My brother-in- 
law told me that, in the spring of 1871, a friend of his 
had come to stay with him accompanied by his little son, 
a boy seven years old. This child spoke Latin with the 
utmost fluency, and he spoke nothing else. What I am 
going to suggest is a Utopian dream, but let us suppose 
that a hundred fathers could be found in Europe, all of 
this way of thinking, all resolved to submit to some 
inconvenience in order that their sons might speak Latin 
as a living language. A small island might be rented 
near the coast of Italy, and in that island Latin alone 
might be permitted. Just as the successive govern- 
ments of France maintain the establishments of Sevres 
and the Gobelins to keep the manufactures of porce- 
lain and tapestry up to a recognized high standard of 
excellence, so this Latin island might be maintained 
to give more vivacity to scholarship. If there were 
but one little corner of ground on the wide earth 
where pure Latin was constantly spoken, our knowledge 
of the classic writers would become far more sym- 
pathetically intimate. After living in the Latin island 
we should think in Latin as we read, and read without 
translating. 

But this is dreaming. It is too certain that on return- 
ing from the Latin island into the atmosphere of modern 
colleges an evil change would come over our young 
Latinists like that which came upon the young Montaigne 
when his father sent him to the college of Guienne, "at 
that time the best and most flourishing in France." 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 

Montaigne. 



A boy 
Latinist. 



Dream of a 
Latin 
island. 



9^ 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
III. 

Corruption 
oj Latin. 



False 
quantities. 



Montaigne tells us that, notwithstanding all his father's 
precautions, the place "was a college still." "My 
Latin," he adds, " immediately grew corrupt, and by dis- 
continuance I have since lost all manner of use of it." If 
it were the custom to speak Latin, it would be the 
custom to speak it badly ; and a master of the language 
would have to conform to the evil usages around him. 
Our present state of ignorance has the charm of being 
silent, except when old-fashioned gentlemen in the House 
of Commons quote poetry which they cannot pronounce 
to hearers who cannot understand it. 

Note. — An English orator quoted from Cicero the sentence "Non 
intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia. " He 
made the second vowel in vectigal short, and the House laughed at 
him , he tried again and pronounced it with the long sound of the 
English i, on which the critical body he addressed was perfectly 
satisfied. But if a Roman had been present it is probable that, 
of the two, the short English i would have astonished his ears the 
less, for our short i does bear some resemblance to the southern i, 
whereas our long i resembles no single letter in any alphabet of the 
Latin family of languages. We are scrupulously careful to avoid 
what we call false quantities, we are quite utterly and ignorantly 
unscrupulous about false sounds. One of the best instances is 
the well-known " veni, vidi, vici," which we pronounce very much 
as if it had been written vinai % vaidai, vaisai, in Italian letters. 



OF EDUCATION. 



95 



LETTER IV. 

TO A STUDENT OF LITERATURE. 

Studies, whatever they may be, always considered, by some, a waste 

of time— The classical languages— The higher mathematics 

The accomplishments — Indirect uses of different studies— In- 
fluence of music— Studies indirectly useful to authors What 

induced Mr. Roscoe to write the lives of Lorenzo de' Medici 
and Leo X. 

Whatever you study, some one will consider that par- 
ticular study a foolish waste of time. 

If you were to abandon successively every subject of 
intellectual labour which had, in its turn, been con- 
demned by some adviser as useless, the result would be 
simple intellectual nakedness. The classical languages, 
to begin with, have long been considered useless by the 
majority of practical people— and pray, what to shop- 
keepers, doctors, attorneys, artists, can be the use of 
the higher mathematics? And if these studies, which 
have been conventionally classed as serious studies, are 
considered unnecessary notwithstanding the tremendous 
authority of custom, how much the more are those 
studies exposed to a like contempt which belong to the 
category of accomplishments ! What is the use of draw- 
ing, for it ends in a worthless sketch ? Why should we 
study music when after wasting a thousand hours the 
amateur cannot satisfy the ear? A quoi bon modern 
languages when the accomplishment only enables us to 
call a waiter in French or German who is sure to answer 
us in English? And what, when it is not your trade, 
can be the good of dissecting animals or plants ? 



part in. 

LETTEK 
IV. 



Stiidies 

considered a 

waste of 

time. 



The classics* 



Mathe- 
matics. 



Drawing. 



Music. 



La7i°-iiazes* 



Science. 



9 5 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LKTTER 
IV. 

We work for 
culture- 



History and 
landscape 
painting. 



Botany. 



Music- 



To all questionings of this kind there is but one reply. 
We work for culture. We work to enlarge the intel- 
ligence, and to make it a better and more effective 
instrument. This is our main purpose ; but it may be 
added that even for our special labours it is always 
difficult to say beforehand exactly what will turn out in 
the end to be most useful. What, in appearance, can be 
more entirely outside the work of a landscape painter 
than the study of ancient history? and yet I can show 
you how an interest in ancient history might indirectly 
be of great service to a landscape painter. It would make 
him profoundly feel the human associations of many 
localities which to an ignorant man would be devoid of 
interest or meaning ; and this human interest in the 
scenes where great events have taken place, or which 
have "been distinguished by the habitation of illustrious 
men in other ages, is in fact one of the great fundamental 
motives of landscape painting. It has been very much 
questioned, especially by foreign critics, whether the 
interest in botany which is taken by some of the more 
cultivated English landscape painters is not for them a 
false direction and wrong employment of the mind ; but 
a landscape painter may feel his interest in vegetation 
infinitely increased by the accurate knowledge of its 
laws, and such an increase of interest would make him 
work more zealously, and with less danger of weariness 
and ennui, besides being a very useful help to the memory 
in retaining the authentic vegetable forms. It may seem 
more difficult to show the possible utility of a study 
apparently so entirely outside of othei studies as music 
is ; and yet music has an important influence on the 
whole of our emotional nature, and indirectly upon 
expression of all kinds. He who has once learned the 



OF EDUCATION, 



97 



self-control of the musician, the use ot piano and forte 
each in its right place, when to be lightly swift or 
majestically slow, and especially how to keep to the key 
once chosen till the right time has come for changing it ; 
he who has once learned this knows the secret of the 
arts. No painter, writer, orator, who had the power and 
judgment of a thoroughly cultivated musician, could sin 
against the broad principles of taste. 

More than all other men have authors reason to 
appreciate the indirect utilities of knowledge that is 
apparently irrelevant. Who can tell what knowledge 
will be of most use to them ? Even the very greatest of 
authors are indebted to miscellaneous reading, often in 
several different languages, for the suggestion of their 
most original works, and for the light which has kindled 
many a shining thought of their own. And authors who 
seem to have less need than others of any outward help, 
poets whose compositions might appear to be chiefly 
inventive and emotional, novelists who are free from the 
restraints and the researches of the historian, work up 
what they know into what they write ; so that if you 
could remove every line which is based on studies out- 
side the strict limits of their art, you would blot out 
half their compositions. Take the antiquarian element 
out of Scott, and see how many of his works could never 
have been written. Remove from Goldsmith's brain 
the recollection of his wayward studies and strange ex- 
periences, and you would remove the rich material of 
the " Traveller " and the Essays, and mutilate even the 
immortal "Vicar of Wakefield." Without a classical 
education and foreign travel, Byron would not have 
composed "Childe Harold;" without the most catholic 
interest in the literature of all the ages, and of many 



part in. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Music. 



[ < C7io7vledge 
indirectly 
useful to 
authors* 



Scott. 
Goldsmith. 



Byron. 



9 3 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Morris. 



Roscoe. 



Francis 
Holdev. 



different peoples from the North Sea to the Mediter- 
ranean, our contemporary William Morris would never 
have conceived, and could not have executed, that 
strong work "The Earthly Paradise." It may not 
seem necessary to learn Italian, yet Mr. Roscoe's cele- 
brity as an author was due in the first place to his 
private fondness for Italian literature. He did not learn 
Italian in order that he might write his biographies, but 
he wrote about Lorenzo and Leo because he had 
mastered Italian, and because the language led him 
to take an interest in the greatest house of Florence. 
The way in which authors are led by their favourite 
studies indirectly to the great performance of their lives 
has never been more clearly illustrated than in this 
instance. 

When William Roscoe w r as a young man he had for 
his friend Francis Holden, nephew of Mr. Richard 
Hold en, a schoolmaster in Liverpool. Francis Holden 
was a young man of uncommon culture, having at the 
same time really sound scholarship in several languages, 
and an ardent enthusiasm for literature. He urged 
Roscoe to study languages, and used especially, in their 
evening walks together, to repeat to him passages from 
the noblest poets of Italy. In this way Roscoe was led 
to attempt Italian, and, having once begun, went on 
till he had mastered it. " It was in the course of these 
studies," says his biographer, " that he first formed the 
idea of writing the Life of Lorenzo de* Medici." 



OF EDUCATION. 



99 



LETTER V. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
V. 



TO A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN WHO REGRETTED THAT HIS SON 
HAD THE TENDENCIES OF A DILETTANT. 

Inaccuracy of the common distinction between amateur pursuits and 
more serious studies— All of us are amateurs in many things- 
Prince Albert— The Emperor Napoleon III.— Contrast between 
general and professional education— The price of high accom- 
plishment. 

I agree with you that amateurship, as generally prac- 
tised, may be a waste of time, but the common dis- 
tinction between amateur pursuits and serious studies 
is inconsistent. A painter whose art is imperfect and 
who does not work for money is called an amateur; 
a scholar who writes imperfect Latin, not for money, 
escapes the imputation of amateurship, and is called a 
learned man. Surely we have been blinded by custom 
in these things. Ideas of frivolity are attached to 
imperfect acquirement in certain directions, and ideas of 
gravity to equally imperfect acquirement in others. To 
write bad Latin poetry is not thought to be frivolous, 
but it is considered frivolous to compose imperfectly 
and unprofessionally in other fine arts. 

Yet are we not all of us amateurs in those pursuits 
which constituted our education— amateurs at the best, 
if we loved them, and even inferior to amateurs if we 
disliked them? We have not sounder knowledge or 
more perfect skill in the ancient languages than Prince 
Albert had in music. We know something of them, yet 
in comparison with perfect mastery such as that of a 
cultivated old Greek or Roman, our scholarship is at the 

H 2 



A mateitr' 
ship. 



Custom. 



All of us 
are 

amateurs. 



ICO 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 



Napoleon 
UI. 



Variety of 

modern 
education. 



Mastery. 



best on a level with the musical scholarship of a culti- 
vated amateur like the Prince Consort. 

If the essence of dilettantism is to be contented with 
imperfect attainment, I fear that all educated people 
must be considered dilettants. 

It is narrated of the Emperor Napoleon III. that in 
answer to some one who inquired of his Majesty whether 
the Prince Imperial was a musician, he replied that he 
discouraged dilettantism, and " did not wish his son to 
be a Coburg." But the Emperor himself was quite as 
much a dilettant as Prince Albert; though their dilet- 
tantism did not lie in the same directions. The Prince 
was an amateur musician and artist; the Emperor was 
an amateur historian, an amateur scholar, and antiquary. 
It may be added that Napoleon III. indulged in another 
and more dangerous kind of amateurship. He had a 
taste for amateur generalship, and the consequences of 
his indulgence of this taste are known to everyone. 

The variety of modern education encourages a scat- 
tered dilettantism. It is only in professional life that 
the energies of young men are powerfully concentrated. 
There is a steadying effect in thorough professional train- 
ing which school education does not supply. Our boys 
receive praise and prizes for doing many things most 
imperfectly, and it is not their fault if they remain 
ignorant of what perfection really is, and of the im- 
mensity of the labour which it costs. I think that you 
would do well, perhaps, without discouraging your son 
too much by chillingly accurate estimates of the value of 
what he has done, to make him on all proper occasions 
feel and see the difference between half-knowledge and 
thorough mastery. It would be a good thing for a youth 
to be made clearly aware how enormous a price of 



OF EDUCATION. 



101 



labour Nature has set upon high accomplishment in 
everything that is really worthy of his pursuit. It is 
this pei suasion, which men usually arrive at only in 
their maturity, that operates as the most effectual tran- 
quillizer of frivolous activities. 



LETTER VI. 

TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE. 

The Author's dread of protection in intellectual pursuits — Example 
from the Fine Arts — Prize poems — Governmental encourage- 
ment of learning — The bad effects of it — Pet pursuits — Objec- 
tion to the interference of Ministers — A project for separate 
examinations. 

What I am going to say will seem very strange to you, 
and is not unlikely to arouse as much professional 
animosity as you are capable of feeling against an old 
friend. You who are a dignitary of the University, 
and have earned your various titles in a fair field, as a 
soldier wins his epaulettes before the enemy, are not the 
likeliest person to hear with patience the unauthorized 
theories of an innovator. Take them, then, as mere 
speculations, if you will — not altogether unworthy of 
consideration, for they are suggested by a sincere 
anxiety for the best interests of learning, and yet not 
very dangerous to vested interests of any kind, since 
they can have little influence on the practice or opinion 
of the world. 

I feci a great dread of what may be called protection 
in intellectual pursuits. It seems to me that when the 
Government of a country applies an artificial stimulus 



part in. 

LETTER 

V. 



LETTER 
VI. 



Protection 
in 

intellectual 
pursuits. 



102 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Medals and 

money for 

artists. 



Govern- 
mental 
patronage. 



Prize poems- 



to certain branches of study for their encouragement, by 
the offer of rewards in honour or in money beyond the 
rewards inherent in the studies themselves, or coming 
naturally from their usefulness to mankind, there is a 
great danger that men may give a disproportionate atten- 
tion to those favoured branches of study. Let me take an 
example from the practice of the Fine Arts. A Govern- 
ment, by medals and crosses, or by money, can easily 
create and foster a school of painting which is entirely 
out of relation to the century in which it exists, and 
quite incapable of working harmoniously with the con- 
temporary national life. This has actually been done 
to a considerable extent in various countries, especially 
in France and in Bavaria. A sort of classicism which had 
scarcely any foundation in sincerity of feeling was kept 
up artificially by a system of encouragement which 
offered inducements outside the genuine ambition of an 
artist. The true enthusiasm which is the life of art 
impels the artist to express his own feeling for the 
delight of others. The offer of a medal or a pension 
induces him to make the sort of picture which is likely 
to satisfy the authorities. He first ascertains what is 
according to the rule, and then follows it as nearly as he 
is able. He works in a temper of simple conformity, 
remote indeed from the passionate enthusiasm of 
creation. It is so with prize poems. We all know 
the sort of poetry which is composed in order to gain 
prizes. The anxiety of the versifier is to be safe : he 
tries to compose what will escape censure ; he dreads 
the originality that may give offence. But all powerful 
pictures and poems have been wrought in the energy of 
individual feeling, not in conformity to a pattern. 

Now, suppose that, instead of encouraging poetry or 






OF EDUCATION-. 



i°3 



painting, a Government resolves to encourage learning. 
It will patronise certain pursuits to the neglect of others, 
or it will encourage certain pursuits more liberally 
than others. The subjects of such a Government will not 
follow learning exclusively for its delightfulness or its 
utility; another consideration will affect their choice. 
They will inquire which pursuits are rewarded by prizes 
in honour or money, and they will be strongly tempted 
to select them. Therefore, unless the Government has 
exercised extraordinary wisdom, men will learn what 
they do not really care for and may never practically 
want, merely in order to win some academical grade. 
So soon as this object has been attained, they will 
immediately abandon the studies by which they at- 
tained it. 

Can it be said that in these cases the purposes of the 
Government were fulfilled? Clearly not, if it desired 
to form a permanent taste for learning. But it may 
have done worse than fail in this merely negative way; 
it may have diverted its youth from pursuits to which 
Nature called them, and in which they might have 
effectually aided the advancement and the prosperity 
of the State. 

Let us Suppose that a Government were to have a 
pet study, and offer great artificial inducements for 
success in it. Suppose that the pet study were entomo- 
logy. All the most promising youth of the country 
would spend ten years in emulating Messrs. Kirby 
and Spence, and take their degrees as entomological 
bachelors. But might it not easily happen that to a 
majority of the young gentlemen this pursuit would have 
acted positively as a hindrance by keeping them from 
other pursuits more likely to help them in their pro- 



PART III. 

LETTER 
VI. 



A cademical 
grades- 



Possible bad 
effects. 



A pet study. 



104 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART III. 

LETTER 
VI. 

A Pet study. 



University 
degrees. 



fessions? It would not only cost a great deal of 
valuable time, it would absorb a quantity of youthful 
energy which the country can ill afford to lose. The 
Government would probably affirm that entomology, if 
not always practically useful in itself, was an invaluable 
intellectual training ; but what if this training used up 
the early vigour which might be needed for other pur 
suits, and of which every human being has only a limited 
supply? We should be told, no doubt, tnat this power- 
ful encouragement was necessary to the advancement 
of science, and it is true that under such a system 
the rudiments of entomology would be more generally 
known. But the vulgarization of rudiments is not the 
advancement of knowledge. Entomology has gone quite 
as far in discovery, though pursued simply for its own 
sake, as it would have gone if it had been made neces- 
sary to a bachelor's degree. 

You will ask whether I would go so far as to abolish 
degrees of all kinds. Certainly not; that is not my 
project. But I believe that no Government is com- 
petent to make a selection amongst intellectual pursuits 
and say, "This or that pursuit shall be encouraged by 
university degrees, whilst other pursuits of intellectual 
men shall have no encouragement whatever." I may 
mention by name your present autocrat of Public In- 
struction, Jules Simon. He is a literary man of some 
eminence ; he has written several interesting books, and 
on the whole he is probably more competent to deal 
with these questions than many of his predecessors. 
But however capable a man may be, he is sure to be 
biassed by the feeling common to all intellectual men 
which attributes a peculiar importance to their own 
pursuits. I do not like to see any Minister, or any 



OF EDUCATION. 



10! 



Cabinet of Ministers, settling what all the young men 
of a country are to learn under penalty of exclusion 
from all the liberal professions. 

What I should think more reasonable would be some 
such arrangement as the following. There might be a 
board of thoroughly competent examiners for each 
branch of study separately, authorized to confer certi- 
ficates of competence. When a man believed himself 
to have mastered a branch of study, he would go and 
try to get a certificate for that. The various studies 
would then be followed according to the public sense 
of their importance, and would fall quite naturally into 
the rank which they ought to occupy at any given 
period of the national history. These separate examina- 
tions should be severe enough to ensure a serviceable 
degree of proficiency. Nobody should be allowed to 
teach anything who had not got a certificate for the 
particular thing he intended to profess. In the con- 
fusion of your present system, not only do you fail to 
ensure the thoroughness of pupils, but the teachers 
themselves are too frequently incompetent in some 
speciality which accidentally falls to their share. I 
think that a Greek master ought to be a complete 
Hellenist, but surely it is not necessary that he should 
be half a mathematician. 

To sum up. It seems to me that a Government has 
no business to favour some intellectual pursuits more 
than others, but that it ought to recognize competent 
attainment in every one of them by a sort of diploma 
or certificate, leaving the relative rank of different pur- 
suits to be settled by public opinion. And as to the 
educators themselves, I think that when a man has 
proved his competence in one thing, he ought to be 



PART III, 

i.i'. i 1 1 i< 



A proposal. 



Certificates 
competence- 



Recognition. 



io6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 



LETTER 
VII. 



A bandon- 
jnent of 
Greek. 



allowed to teach that one thing in the University without 
being required to pass an examination in any other 
thing. 



LETTER VII. 

TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE. 

Loss of time to acquire an ancient language too imperfectly for it to 
be useful — Dr. Arnold — Mature life leaves little time for culture 
— Modern indifference to ancient thinking — Larger experience 
of the modems — The moderns older than the ancients — The 
Author's regret that Latin has ceased to be a living language — 
The shortest way to learn to read a language — The recent 
interest in modern languages — A French student of Hebrew. 

I was happy to learn your opinion of the reform so 
recently introduced by the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, and the more so that I was glad to find the views 
of so inexperienced a person as myself confirmed by 
your wider knowledge. You went even farther than 
M. Jules Simon, for you openly expressed a desire for 
the complete withdrawal of Greek from the ordinary 
school curriculum. Not that you undervalue Greek, — 
no one of your scholarship would be likely to under- 
value a great literature, — but you thought it a loss of 
time to acquire a language so imperfectly that the litera- 
ture still remained practically closed whilst thousands of 
valuable hours had been wasted on the details of grammar. 
The truth is, that although the principle of beginning 
many things in school education with the idea that the 
pupil will in maturer life pursue them to fuller accom- 
plishment may in some instances be justified by the 
prolonged studies of men who have a natural taste for 



OF EDUCATION. 



iwj 



erudition, it is idle to shut one's eyes to the fact that 
most men have no inclination for school-work after they 
ha.ve left school, and if they had the inclination they have 
not the time. Our own Dr. Arnold, the model English 
schoolmaster, said, " It is so hard to begin anything in 
after-life, and so comparatively easy to continue what has 
been begun, that I think we are bound to break ground, 
as it were, into several of the mines of knowledge with 
our pupils ; that the first difficulties may be overcome 
by them whilst there is yet a power from without to aid 
their own faltering resolution, and that so they may be 
enabled, if they will, to go on with the study hereafter." 
The principle here expressed is no doubt one of the 
important principles of all early education, and yet I 
think that it cannot be safely followed without taking 
account of human nature, such as it is. Everything 
hangs on that little parenthesis " if they will." And if 
they will not, how then? The time spent in breaking 
the ground has been wasted, except so far as the exer- 
cise of breaking the ground may have been useful in 
mental gymnastics. 

Mature life brings so many professional or social 
'duties that it leaves scant time for culture; and those 
who care for culture most earnestly and sincerely, are 
the very persons who will economize time to the utmost. 
Now, to read a language that has been very imperfectly 
mastered is felt to be a bad economy of time. Suppose 
the case of a man occupied in business who has studied 
Greek rather assiduously in youth and yet not' enough to 
read it with facility. Suppose that this man wants to get 
at the mind of Plato. He can read the original, but he 
reads it so slowly that it would cost him more hours than 
he can spare, and this is why he has recourse to a trans 



PART III. 

LETTER 

VII. 



Beginnings. 



Duties of 
jnatzire life- 



io8 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART in. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Indifference 
to ancient 
thought. 



Opinion of a 
classical 
scholar. 



lation. In this case there is no indifference to Greek 
culture ; on the contrary, the reader desires to assimilate 
what he can of it, but the very earnestness of his wish 
to have free access to ancient thought makes him prefer 
it in modern language. 

This is the most favourable instance that can be 
imagined, except, of course, those exceedingly rare 
cases where a man has leisure enough, and enthusiasm 
enough, to become a Hellenist. The great majority of 
our contemporaries do not care for ancient thought at 
all, it is so remote from them, it belongs to conditions of 
civilization so different from their own, it is encumbered 
with so many lengthy discussions of questions which 
have been settled by the subsequent experience of the 
world, that the modern mind prefers to occupy itself 
with its own anxieties and its own speculations. It is a 
great error to suppose that indifference to ancient think- 
ing is peculiar to the spirit of Philistinism ; for the most 
cultivated contemporary intellects seek light from each 
other rather than from the ancients. One of the most 
distinguished of modern thinkers, a scholar of the rarest 
classical attainments, said to me in reference to some 
scheme of mine for renewing my classical studies, that 
they would be of no more use to me than numismatics. 
It is this feeling, the feeling that Greek speculation is 
of less consequence to the modern world than German 
and French speculation, which causes so many of us, 
rightly or wrongly, to regard it as a palseontological 
curiosity, interesting for those who are curious as to the 
past of the human mind, but not likely to be influential 
upon its future. 

This estimate of ancient thinking is not often expressed 
quite so openly as I have just expressed it, and yet it is 



OF EDUCATION. 



109 



very generally prevalent even amongst the most thoughtful 
people, especially if modern science has had any con- 
spicuous influence in the formation of their minds. The 
truth is, as Sydney Smith observed many years ago, that 
there is a confusion of language in the use of the word 
" ancient." We say " the ancients," as if they were older 
and more experienced men than we are, whereas the age 
and experience are entirely on our side. They were the 
clever children, "and we only are the white-bearded, 
silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are 
prepared to profit by, all the experience which human 
life can supply." The sense of our larger experience, as 
it grows in us and becomes more distinctly conscious, 
produces a corresponding decline in our feelings of 
reverence for classic times. The past has bequeathed 
to us its results, and we have incorporated them into 
our own edifice, but we have used them rather as 
materials than as models. 

In your practical desire to retain in education only 
what is likely to be used, you are willing to preserve 
Latin. M. Jules Simon says that Latin ought to be 
studied only to be read. On this point permit me to 
offer an observation. The one thing I regret about 
Latin is that we have ceased to speak it The natural 
method, and by far the most rapid and sure method of 
learning a language, is to begin by acquiring words in 
order to use them to ask for what we want ; after that we 
acquire other words for narration and the expression of 
our sentiments. By far the shortest way to learn to read 
a language is to begin by speaking it. The colloquial 
tongue is the basis of the literary tongue. This is so true 
that with all the pains and trouble you give to the Latin 
education of your pupils, you cannot teach them as much 



PART III. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Go?ifusion 0/ 
•words. 



The moderns 

older than 

the ancients. 



The sindy of 
Latin. 



no 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 

VII. 



Latin- 



Modern 
languages. 



A 

Frenchman 

on German 

literature. 



Latin, for reading only, in the course of ten years, as a 
living foreigner will give them of his own language in ten 
months. I seriously believe that if your object is to 
make boys read Latin easily, you begin at the wrong 
end. It is deplorable that the learned should ever have 
allowed Latin to become a dead language, since in per- 
mitting this they have enormously increased the difficulty 
of acquiring it, even for the purposes of scholarship. 

No foreigner who knows the French people will 
disapprove of the novel desire to know the modern lan- 
guages, which has been one of the most unexpected con- 
sequences of the war. Their extreme ignorance of the 
literature of other nations has been the cause of enor- 
mous evils. Notwithstanding her central position, France 
has been a very isolated country intellectually, much 
more isolated than England, more isolated even than 
Transylvania, where foreign literatures are familiar to 
the cultivated classes. This isolation has produced very 
lamentable effects, not only on the national culture but 
most especially on the national character. No modern 
nation, however important, can safely remain in igno- 
rance of its contemporaries. The Frenchman was like a 
gentleman shut up within his own park-wall, having no in- 
tercourse with his neighbours, and reading nothing but the 
history of his own ancestors — for the Romans were your 
ancestors, intellectually. It is only by the study of living 
languages, and their continual use, that we can learn 
our true place in the world. A Frenchman was study- 
ing Hebrew ; I ventured to suggest that German might 
possibly be more useful. To this he answered, that there 
was 7io literature in German. "Vous avez Goethe, votis 
avez Schiller, et vous avez Lessing, mats en dehors de ces 
trois notns il riy a rien" This meant simply that my 



OF EDUCATION. 



in 



student of Hebrew measured German literature by his 
own knowledge of it. Three names had reached him, 
only names, and only three of them. As to the men 
who were unknown to him, he had decided that they 
did not exist. Certainly, if there are many French- 
men in this condition, it is time that they learned a little 
German. 



LETTER VIII. 

TO A STUDENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 

Standard of attainment in living languages higher than in ancient 
ones— Difficulty of maintaining high pretensions— Prevalent illu- 
sion about the facility of modern languages— Easy to speak them 
badly— Some propositions based upon experience— Expectations 
and disappointments. 

Had your main purpose in the education of yourself 
(I do not say self-education, for you wisely accept all 
help from others) been the attainment of classical 
scholarship, I might have observed that as the received 
standard in that kind of learning is not a very elevated 
one, you might reasonably hope to reach it with a certain 
calculable quantity of effort. The classical student has 
only to contend against other students who are and 
have been situated very much as he is situated himself. 
They have learned Latin and Greek from grammars and 
dictionaries as he is learning them, and the only natural 
advantages which any of his predecessors may have 
possessed are superiorities of memory which may be 
compensated by his greater perseverance, or superiorities 
of sympathy to which he may "level up" by that 
acquired and artificial interest which comes from pro- 



PART III. 

LETTER 



LETTER 
VIII. 



Classical 
students. 



112 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 
VIII. 

Students of 

moderti 
languages- 



Severe tests 

of their 

efficiency. 



Satisfac- 
toriness of 
severe tests. 



tracted application. But the student of modern languages 
has to contend against advantages of situation, as the 
gardeners of an inhospitable climate contend against the 
natural sunshine of the south. How easy it is to have 
a fruitful date-tree in Arabia, how difficult in England ! 
How easy for the Florentine to speak Italian, how 
difficult for us ! The modern linguist can never fence 
himself behind that stately unquestionableness which 
shields the classical scholar. His knowledge may at any 
time be put to the severest of all tests, to a test incom- 
parably more severe than the strictest university exami- 
nation. The first native that he meets is his examiner, 
the first foreign city is his Oxford. And this is probably 
one reason why accomplishment in modern languages 
has been rather a matter of utility than of dignity, for it 
is difficult to keep up great pretensions in the face of a 
multitude of critics. What would the most learned- 
looking gown avail, if a malicious foreigner were laugh- 
ing at us ? 

But there is a deep satisfaction in the severity of the 
test. An honest and courageous student likes to be 
clearly aware of the exact value of his acquisitions. He 
takes his French to Paris and has it tested there as we 
take our plate to the silversmith, and after that he 
knows, or may know, quite accurately what it is worth. 
He has not the dignity of scholarship, he is not held to 
be a learned man, but he has acquired something which 
may be of daily use to him in society, or in commerce, 
or in literature; and there are thousands of educated 
natives who can accurately estimate his attainment and 
help him to a higher perfection. All this is deeply 
satisfying to a lover of intellectual realities. The modern 
linguist is always on firm ground, and in broad daylight 



OF EDUCATION. 



"3 



He may impede his own progress by the illusions of 
solitary self-conceit, but the atmosphere outside is not 
favourable to such illusions. It is well for him that the 
temptations to charlatanism are so few, that the risks of 
exposure are so frequent. 

Still there are illusions, and the commonest of them 
is that a modern language may be very easily mastered. 
There is a popular idea that French is easy, that Italian 
is easy, that German is more difficult, yet by no means 
insuperably difficult. It is believed that when an 
Englishman has spent all the best years of his youth 
in attempting to learn Latin and Greek, he may acquire 
one or two modern languages with little effort during 
a brief residence on the Continent. It is certainly true 
that we may learn any number of foreign languages so 
as to speak them badly, but it surely cannot be easy to 
speak them well. It may be inferred that this is not 
easy because the accomplishment is so rare. The in- 
ducements are common, the accomplishment is iare. 
Thousands of English people have very strong reasons 
for learning French, thousands of French people could 
improve their position by learning English ; but rare 
indeed are the men and women who know both lan- 
guages thoroughly. 

The following propositions, based on much observa- 
tion of a kind wholly unprejudiced, and tested by a not 
inconsiderable experience, will be found, I believe, un- 
assailable. 

1. Whenever a foreign language is perfectly acquired 
there are peculiar family conditions. The person has either 
married a person of the other nation, or is of mixed blood. 

2. When a foreign language has bee?i acquired {there are 
instances of this) in quite absolute perfection, thei'e is almost 

I 



PART III. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Illusions 

about 
facility. 



Five 

propositions 

about 

languages. 



H4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 
VIII. 



always some loss in the native tongue. Either the native 
tongue is not spoken correctly, or it is not spoken with 
perfect ease. 

3. A man sometimes speaks two languages correctly, his 
father's and his mother's, or his own ajid his wife's, but 
never three. 

4. Children can speak several languages exactly like 
natives, but in succession, never simultaneously. They 
forget the first in acquiring the second, and so on. 

5. A language cannot be leariied by an adult without 
five years' residence in the country where it is spoken, and 
without habits of close observation a residence of twenty 
years is insufficient. 

This is not encouraging, but it is the truth. Happily, 
a knowledge which falls far short of mastery may be 
of much practical use in the common affairs of life, 
and may even afford some initiation into foreign litera- 
tures. I do not argue that because perfection is denied 
of us by the circumstances of our lives or the necessities 
of our organization we are therefore to abandon the study 
to every language but the mother tongue. It may be of 
use to us to know several languages imperfectly, if only 
we confess the hopelessness of absolute attainment. That 
which is truly, and deeply, and seriously an injury to 
our intellectual life, is the foolishness of the too common 
vanity which first deludes itself with childish expecta- 
tions, and then tortures itself with late regret for failure 
which might have been easily foreseen. 



OF EDUCATION. 



u< 



LETTER IX. 

TO A STUDENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES. 

Cases known to the Author — Opinion of an English linguist — Family 
conditions — An Englishman who lived forty years in France — 
Influence of children — An Italian in France — Displacement of 
one language by another — English lady married to a Frenchman 
— An Italian in Garibaldi's army — Corruption of languages by the 
uneducated when they learn more than one — Neapolitan servant of 
an English gentleman — A Scotch servant-woman — The author's 
eldest boy — Substitution of one language for another — In mature 
life we lose facility — The resisting power of adults — Seen in 
international marriages — Case of a retired English officer — Two 
Germans in France — Germans in London — The innocence of the 
ear — Imperfect attainment of little intellectual use — Too many 
languages attempted in education — Polyglot waiters — Indirect 
benefits. 

My five propositions about learning modern languages 
appear from your answer to have rather surprised you, 
and you ask for some instances in illustration. I am 
aware that my last letter was dogmatic, so let me begin 
by begging your pardon for its dogmatism. The present 
communication may steer clear of that rock of offence, 
for it shall confine itself to an account of cases that I 
have known. 

One of the most accomplished of English linguists re- 
marked to me that after much observation of the labours 
of others, and a fair estimate of his own, he had come 
to the rather discouraging conclusion that it was not 
possible to learn a foreign language. He did not take 
account of the one exceptional class of cases where 
the family conditions make the use" of two languages 
habitual. The most favourable family conditions are not 

I 2 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IX. 



A dis- 
couraging 
conclusion. 



n6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III 

LETTER 
IX. 



An English 

resident ht 

France- 



Children 
the best 
teachers- 



Natural 

growh of a 

language- 



in themselves sufficient to ensure the acquisition of a 
language, but wherever an instance of perfect acquisition 
is to be found, these family conditions are always found 
along with it. My friend W., an English artist living in 
Paris, speaks French with quite absolute accuracy as to 
grammar and choice of expression, and with accuracy of 
pronunciation so nearly absolute that the best French 
ears can detect nothing wrong but the pronunciation of 
the letter " r." He has lived in France for the space of 
forty years, but it may be doubted whether in forty years 
he could have mastered the language as he has done if 
he had not married a native. French has been his home 
language for thirty years and more, and the perfect ease 
and naturalness of his diction are due to the powerful 
home influences, especially to the influence of children. 
A child is born that speaks the foreign tongue from the 
first inarticulate beginnings. It makes its own child- 
language, and the father as he hears it is born over again 
in the foreign land by tender paternal sympathy. Gradu- 
ally the sweet child-talk gives place to the perfect tongue, 
and the father follows it by insensible gradations, himself 
the most docile of pupils, led onward rather than 
instructed by the winning and playful little mastei, 
incomparably the best of masters. The process here i? 
nature's own inimitable process. Every new child thai 
is born to a man so situated carries him through a repeti- 
tion of that marvellous course of teaching. The language 
grows in his brain from the first rudiments — the real 
natural rudiments, not the hard rudiments of the gram- 
marian — just as plants grow naturally from their seeds. 
It has not been built by human processes of piecing 
together, but has developed itself like a living creature. 
This way of learning a language possesses over the die- 



OF EDUCATION. 



117 



tionary process exactly the kind of superiority which a 
living man, developed naturally from the fcetus, possesses 
over the clastic anatomical man-model of the ingenious 
doctor Auzoux. The doctor's models are remarkably 
perfect in construction, they have all the organs, but they 
have not life. 

When, however, this natural process of growth is 
allowed to go forward without watchful care, it is likely 
to displace the mother tongue. It is sometimes affirmed 
that the impressions of childhood are never eifaced, 
that the mother tongue is never forgotten. It may be 
that it is never wholly forgotten, except in the case of 
young children, but it may become so imperfect as to 
be practically of little use. I knew an Italian who came 
to France as a young man and learned his profession 
there He was afterwards naturalized, married a French 
lady, had several children, pursued a very successful 
career in Paris, and became ultimately French Am- 
bassador at the court of Victor Emmanuel. His French 
was so perfect that it was quite impossible for anyone to 
detect the usual Italian accents. I used to count him 
as a remarkable and almost solitary instance of a man 
speaking two languages in their perfection, but I learned 
since then that his French had displaced his Italian, and 
so completely that he was quite unable to speak Italian 
correctly, and made use of French invariably when in 
Italy. The risk of this displacement is always greatest 
in cases where the native tongue is not kep* up by 
means of literature. Byron and Shelley, or our con- 
temporary Charles Lever, would run little risk of losing 
English by continental residence, but people not accus- 
tomed to reading and writing often forget the mother 
tongue in a few years, even when the foreign one which 



PART III 

• LETTER 
IX. 



Laiigiiage 
imperfectly 
retained- 

Case of an 
Jtalian- 



Loss oftJte 
mother 
tongue* 



nS 



THE INTELLECTUAL LLFE. 



PART III. 

LETTEK 



Case of aii 

English 
lady settled 
in France- 



Caribaldiaf 
sergeant. 



has displaced it is still in a state of imperfection. Madame 
L. is an English lady who married a Frenchman : neither 
her husband nor her children speak English, and as her 
relatives live in one of our most distant colonies, she 
has been separated from them for many years. Isolated 
thus from English society, living in a part of France 
rarely visited by her countrymen, never reading English, 
and writing it little and at long intervals, she speaks it 
now with much difficulty and diffidence. Her French is 
not grammatical, though she has lived for many years 
with people who speak grammatically ; but then Jier 
French is fluent and alive, truly her own living language 
now, whilst English is, if not wholly forgotten, dead 
almost as our Latin is dead. She and I always speak 
French together when we meet, because it is easier for 
her than English, and a more natural expression. I 
have known some other cases of displacement of the 
native tongue, and^ have lately had the opportunity of 
watching a case of such displacement during its progress. 
A sergeant in the Italian army deserted to join Garibaldi 
in the campaign of 1870. On the conclusion of peace it 
was impossible for him to return to Italy, so he settled in 
France and married there. I found some work for him, 
and for some months saw him frequently. Up to the 
date of his marriage he spoke no language but Italian, 
which he could read and write correctly, but after his 
marriage the process of displacement of the native 
tongue began immediately by the corruption ot it. 
He did not keep his Italian safely by itself, putting the 
French in a place of its own as he gradually acquired it, 
but he mixed the two inextricably together. Imagine the 
case of a man who, having a bottle half full of wine, gets 
some beer given him and pours it immediately into the 



OF EDUCATION. 



wine-bottle. The beer will never be pure beer, but it will 
effectually spoil the wine. This process is not so much 
one of displacement as of corruption. It takes place 
readily in uncultivated minds, with feeble separating 
powers. Another example of this was a Neapolitan 
servant of an English gentleman, who mixed his Italian 
twice, first with French and afterwards with English, pro- 
ducing a compound intelligible to nobody but himself, 
if indeed he himself understood it. At the time I knew 
him, the man had no means of communication with his 
species. When his master told him to do anything, he 
made a guess at what was likely to be for the moment 
his master's most probable want, and sometimes hit the 
mark, but more generally missed it. The man's name 
was Alberino, and I remember on one occasion profiting 
by a mistaken guess of his. After a visit to Alberino's 
master, my servant brought forth a magnificent basket of 
trout, which surprised me,- as nothing had been said 
about them. However, we ate them, and only dis- 
covered afterwards that the present was due to an 
illusion of Alberino's. His master had never told 
him to give me the trout, but he had interpreted 
some other order in that sense. When you asked him 
for mustard, he would first touch the salt, and then the 
pepper, &c, looking at you inquiringly till you nodded 
assent. Any attempt at conversation with Alberino was 
sure to lead to a perfect comedy of misunderstandings. 
He never had the remotest idea of what his interlocutor 
was talking about; but he pretended to catch your 
meaning, and answered at haphazard. He had a habit 
of talking aloud to himself, "but in a tongue no man 
could understand." 

It is a law that cultivated people can keep languages 



119 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IX. 

Corruption 

of the native 

tongue. 



Case of a 

Neapolitan 
domestic. 



120 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IX. 

Difficulty of 

keeping 

languages 

separated. 

Case of a 
Scotch 
servant. 



Substitu- 
tion. 



The Author's 
eldest son. 



apart, and in their purity, better than persons who have 
not habits of intellectual analysis. When I lived in 
Scotland three languages were spoken in my house all 
day long, and a housemaid came to us from the Low- 
lands who spoke nothing but Lowland Scotch. She used 
to ask what was the French for this thing or that, and then 
what was the Gaelic for it. Having been answered, she 
invariably asked the further question which of the three 
words, French, Gaelic, or English, was the right word. 
She remained, to the last, entirely incapable of conceiving 
how all the three could be right Had she learned another 
language, it must have been by substitution for her own. 
This is exactly the natural process which takes place in 
the brains of children who are transferred from one 
country to another. My eldest boy spoke English in 
childhood as well as any other English child of his 
age. He was taken to the south of France, and in 
three months he replaced his English with Provencal, 
which he learned from the servants about him. There 
were two ladies in the house who spoke English well, 
and did all in their power, in compliance with my 
urgent entreaties, to preserve the boy's native language ; 
but the substitution took place too rapidly, and was 
beyond control. He began by an unwillingness to use 
English words whenever he could use Provencal instead, 
and in a remarkably short time this unwillingness was 
succeeded by inability. The native language was as 
completely taken out of his brain as a violin is taken out 
of its case : nothing remained, nothing, not one word, not 
any echo of an accent. And as a violinist may put a 
new instrument into the case from which he has removed 
the old one, so the new language occupied the whole 
space which had been occupied by English. When I 



OF EDUCATION. 



121 



saw the child again, there was no means of communica- 
tion between us. 

After that, he was removed to the north of France, and 
the same process began again. As Provencal had pushed 
out English, so French began to push out Provencal. 
The process was wonderfully rapid. The child heard 
people speak French, and he began to speak French 
like them without any formal teaching. He spoke the 
language as he breathed the air. In a few weeks he did 
not retain the least remnant of his Provencal \ it was 
gone after his English into the limbo of the utterly 
forgotten. 

Novelists have occasionally made use of cases similar 
to this, but they speak of the forgotten language as being 
forgotten in the manner that Scott forgot the manuscript 
of " Waverley," which he found afterwards in the drawers 
of an old writing-desk when he was seeking for fishing- 
tackle. They assume (conveniently for the purposes of 
their art) that the first language we learn is never really 
lost, but may be as it were under certain circumstances 
mislaid, to be found again at some future period. Now, 
although something of this kind may be possible when 
the first language has been spoken in rather advanced 
boyhood, I am convinced that in childhood a consider- 
able number of languages might succeed each other 
without leaving any trace whatever. I might have re- 
marked that in addition to English, Provencal, and 
French, my boy had understood Gaelic in his infancy, 
at least to some extent, though he did not speak it. The 
languages in his case succeeded each other without any 
cost of effort, and without any appreciable effect on health. 
The pronunciation of each language was quite faultless 
so far as foreign accent went ; the child had the defects 



PART III. 

LETTEK 
IX. 



Recovery of 

language in 

novels. 



Succession of 
languages. 



122 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Foreign 
residents 

in 
England. 



Children 
and adtrfls. 



Interna- 
tional 
marriages 



of children, but of children born in the different coun- 
tries where he lived. 

As we grow older this facility of acquisition gradually 
leaves us. M. Philarete Chasles says that it is quite im- 
possible for any adult to learn German : an adult may 
learn German as Dr. Arnold did for purposes of erudi- 
tion, for which it is enough to know a language as we 
know Latin, but this is not mastery. You have met 
with many foreign residents in England, who after stay- 
ing in the country for many years can barely make 
themselves intelligible, and must certainly be incapable 
of appreciating those beauties of our literature which are 
dependent upon arrangements of sound. The resisting 
power of the adult brain is quite as remarkable as the 
assimilating power of the immature brain. A child 
hears a sound, and repeats it with perfect accuracy ; a 
man hears a sound, and by way of imitation utters some- 
thing altogether different, being nevertheless persuaded 
that it is at least a close and satisfactory approximation. 
Children imitate well, but adults badly, and the acquisi- 
tion of languages depends mainly on imitation. The 
resisting power of adults is often seen very remarkably 
in international marriages. In those classes of society 
where there is not much culture, or leisure or disposition 
for culture, the one will not learn the other's language 
from opportunity or from affection, but only under abso- 
lute necessity. It seems as if two people living always 
together would gain each other's languages as a matter of 
course, but the fact is that they do not. French people 
who marry foreigners do not usually acquire the foreign 
language if the pair remain in France ; English people 
under similar conditions make the attempt more fre- 
quently, but they rest contented with imperfect attainment 



OF EDUCATION. 



123 



If the power of resistance is so great in people who 
being wedded together for life have peculiarly strong 
inducements for learning each other's languages, it need 
surprise us little to find a like power of resistance in 
cases where motives of affection are altogether absent. 
Englishmen who go to France as adults, and settle there, 
frequently remain for many years in a state of half-know- 
ledge which, though it may carry them through the little 
difficulties of life at railway stations and restaurants, is 
for any intellectual purpose of no conceivable utility. I 
knew a retired English officer, a bachelor, who for many 
years had lived in Paris without any intention of returning 
to England. His French just barely carried him through 
the small transactions of his daily life, but was so limited 
and so incorrect that he could not maintain a conversa- 
tion. His vocabulary was very meagre ; his genders 
were all wrong, and he did not know one single verb, 
literally not one. His pronunciation was so foreign as 
to be very nearly unintelligible, and he hesitated so 
much that it was painful to have to listen to him. I could 
mention a celebrated German, who has lived in or near 
Paris for the last twenty years, and who can neither speak 
nor write the language with any approach to accuracy. 
Another German, who settled in France as a master of 
languages, wrote French tolerably, but spoke it ///tolerably. 
There are Germans in London, who have lived there 
long enough to have families and make fortunes, yet 
who continue to repeat the ordinary German faults of 
pronunciation, the same faults which they committed 
years ago, when first they landed on our shores. 

The child hears and repeats the true sound, the adult 
misleads himself by the spelling. Seldom indeed can 
the adult recover the innocence of the ear. It is like 



PART III. 

LETTER 

IX. 



An 

Englishman 
in Paris. 



Germans in 
France. 



Germans in 
L ondon. 



The 

innocence of 

the ear. 



124 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Too many 
languiges 

attempted. 



Polyglot 
waiters. 



the innocence of the eye, which has to be recovered 
before we can paint from nature, and which belongs 
only to infancy and to art. 

Let me observe, in conclusion, that although to know 
a foreign language perfectly is a most valuable aid to the 
intellectual life, I have never known an instance of very 
imperfect attainment which seemed to enrich the student 
intellectually. Until you can really feel the refinements 
of a language, your mental culture can get little help or 
furtherance from it of any kind, nothing but an inter- 
minable series of misunderstandings. I think that in 
the education of our boys too many languages are at- 
tempted, and that their minds would profit more by the 
perfect acquisition of a single language in addition to 
the native tongue. This, of course, is looking at the 
matter simply from the intellectual point of view. There 
may be practical reasons for knowing several languages 
imperfectly. It may be of use to many men in com- 
mercial situations to know a little of several languages, 
even a few words and phrases are valuable to a traveller, 
but all intellectual labour of the higher kind requires 
much more than that. It is of use to society that there 
should be polyglot waiters who can tell us when the 
train starts in four or five languages ; but the poly- 
glot waiters themselves are not intellectually advanced 
by their accomplishment ; for, after all, the facts of the 
railway time-table are always the same small facts, in 
however many languages they may be announced. True 
culture ought to strengthen the faculty of thinking, and 
to provide the material upon which that noble faculty 
may operate. An accomplishment which does neither of 
these two things for us is useless for our culture, though it 
may be of considerable practical convenience in the affairs 



OF EDUCATION. 



125 



of ordinary life. It is right to add, however, that there is 
sometimes an indirect intellectual benefit from such accom- 
plishments. To be able to order dinner in Spanish is 
not in itself an intellectual advantage ; but if the dinner, 
when you have eaten it, enables you to visit a cathedral 
whose architecture you are qualified to appreciate, there 
is a clear intellectual gain, though an indirect one. 



LETTER X. 

TO A STUDENT WHO LAMENTED HIS DEFECTIVE MEMORY. 

The author rather inclined to congratulation than to condolence 
— Value of a selecting memory — Studies of the young Goethe — 
His great faculty of assimilation — A good literary memory like a 
well-edited periodical — The selecting memory in art — Treacherous 
memories — Cures suggested for them — The mnemotechnic art 
contrary to the true discipline of the mind — Two instances — The 
memory safely aided only by right association. 

So far from writing, as you seem to expect me to do, a 
letter of condolence on the subject of what you are 
pleased to call your " miserable memory," I feel disposed 
rather to indite a letter of congratulation. It is possible 
that you may be blessed with a selecting memory, which 
is not only useful for what it retains but for what it 
rejects. In the immense mass "of facts which come 
before you in literature and in life, it is well that you 
should suffer from as little bewilderment as possible. 
The nature of your memory saves you from this by 
unconsciously selecting what has interested you, and 
letting the rest go by. What interests you is what con- 
cerns you. 

In saying this I speak simply from the intellectual 
point of view, and suppose you to be an intellectual 



PART lit 

LETTER 
IX 

Indirect 
benefits. 



LETTER 
X. 



That 
miserable 
memories 
may be 
selecting 
memories. 



126 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
X. 



Studies of 

the young 

Goethe- 



Bad 

memories. 



man by the natural organization of your brain, to begin 
with. In saying that what interests you is what concerns 
you, I mean intellectually, not materially. It may con- 
cern you, in the pecuniary sense, to take an interest in 
the law ; yet your mind, left to itself, would take little or 
no interest in law, but an absorbing interest in botany. 
The passionate studies of the young Goethe, in many 
different directions, always in obedience to the pre- 
dominant interests of the moment, are the best example 
of the way in which a great intellect, with remarkable 
powers of acquisition and liberty to grow in free luxuri- 
ance, sends its roots into various soils and draws from 
them the constituents of its sap. As a student of law, 
as a university student even, he was not of the type 
which parents and professors consider satisfactory. He 
neglected jurisprudence, he neglected even his college 
studies, but took an interest in so many other pursuits 
that his mind became rich indeed. Yet the wealth 
which his mind acquired seems to have been due to that 
liberty of ranging by which it was permitted to him to 
seek his own everywhere, according to the maxim of 
French law, ckacun pre/id son Men oil il le trouve. Had 
he been a poor student, bound down to the exclusively 
legal studies, which did not greatly interest him, it is 
likely that no one would ever have suspected his im- 
mense faculty of assimilation. In this way men who 
are set by others to load their memories with what is 
not their proper intellectual food, never get the credit of 
having any memory at all, and end by themselves be- 
lieving that they have none. These bad memories are 
often the best, they are often the selecting memories. 
They seldom win distinction in examinations, but in 
literature and art They are quite incomparably superior 



OF EDUCATION. 



127 



to the miscellaneous memories that receive only as boxes 
and drawers receive what is put into them. A good 
literary or artistic memory is not like a post-office that 
takes in everything, but like a very well-edited periodical 
which prints nothing that does not harmonize with its 
intellectual life. A well-known author gave me this 
piece of advice : " Take as many notes as you like, but 
when you write do not look at them — what you remem- 
ber is what you must write, and you ought to give things 
exactly the degree of relative importance that they have 
in your memory. If you forget much, it is well, it will 
only save beforehand the labour of erasure." This advice 
would not be suitable to every author; an author who 
dealt much in minute facts ought to be allowed to refer 
to his memoranda ; but from the artistic point of view 
in literature the advice was wise indeed. In painting, our 
preferences select whilst we are in the presence of nature, 
and our memory selects when we are away from nature. 
The most beautiful compositions are produced by the 
selecting office of the memory, which retains some 
features, and even greatly exaggerates them, whilst it 
diminishes others and often altogether omits them. An 
artist who blamed himself for these exaggerations and 
omissions would blame himself for being an artist. 

Let me add a protest against the common methods 
of curing what are called treacherous memories. They 
are generally founded upon the association of ideas, 
which is so far rational, but then the sort of association 
which they have recourse to is unnatural, and produces 
precisely the sort of disorder which would be produced 
in dress if a man were insane enough to tie, let us say, a 
frying-pan to one of his coat-tails and a child's kite to the 
other. The true discipline of the mind is to be effected 



PART III. 

LETTER 
X. 

A good 
literary 
memory. 



Memory in 
f>ainti?ig. 



Cures for 

defective 

memories- 



128 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
X. 



Objections to 
the mnemo- 
technic art. 



The rational 

art of 

memory, 



only by associating those things together which have a 
real relation of some kind, and the profounder the rela- 
tion, the more it is based upon the natural constitution 
of things, and the less it concerns trifling external details, 
the better will be the order of the intellect. The mnemo- 
technic art wholly disregards this, and is therefore un- 
suited for intellectual persons, though it may be of some 
practical use in ordinary life. A little book on memory, 
of which many editions have been sold, suggests to men 
who forget their umbrellas that they ought always to 
associate the image of an umbrella with that of an open 
door, so that they could never leave any house without 
thinking of one. But would it not be preferable to lose 
two or three guineas annually rather than see a spectral 
umbrella in every doorway ? The same writer suggests 
an idea which appears even more objectionable. Be- 
cause we are apt to lose time, we ought, he says, to 
imagine a skeleton clock-face on the visage of every 
man we talk with ; that is to say, we ought systematically 
to set about producing in our brains an absurd associa- 
tion of ideas, which is quite closely allied to one of the 
most common forms of insanity. It is better to forget 
umbrellas and lose hours than fill our minds with asso- 
ciations of a kind which every disciplined intellect does 
all it can to get rid of. The rational art of memory is 
that used in natural science. We remember anatomy 
and botany because, although the facts they teach are 
infinitely numerous, they are arranged according to the 
constructive order of nature. Unless there were a clear 
relation between the anatomy of one animal and that of 
others, the memory would refuse to burden itself with the 
details of their structure. So in the study of languages, 
we learn several languages by perceiving their true 



OF EDUCATION. 



129 



structural relations, and remembering these. Associa- 
tion of this kind, and the maintenance of order in the 
mind, are the only arts of memory compatible with the 
right government of the intellect. Incongruous, and 
even superficial associations ought to be systematically 
discouraged, and we ought to value the negative or re- 
jecting power of the memory. The finest intellects are 
as remarkable for the ease with which they resist and 
throw off what does not concern them as for the per- 
manence with which their own truths engrave themselves. 
They are like clear glass, which fluoric acid etches in- 
delibly, but which comes out of vitriol intact. 



LETTER XI. 

TO A MASTER OF ARTS WHO SAID THAT A CERTAIN DISTIN- 
GUISHED PAINTER WAS HALF-EDUCATED. 

Conventional idea about the completeness of education — The 
estimate of a schoolmaster — No one can be fully educated — Even 
Leonardo da Vinci fell short of the complete expression of his 
faculties — The word "education" used in two different senses — 
The acquisition of knowledge — Who are the learned? — Quotation 
from Sydney Smith — What a "half-educated" painter had learned 
— What faculties he had developed. 

An intelligent lady was lamenting to me the other day 
that when she heard anything she did not quite agree 
with, it only set her thinking, and did not suggest any 
immediate reply. " Three hours afterwards," she added, 
" 1 arrive at the answer which ought to have been given, 
but then it is exactly three hours too late." 

Being afflicted with precisely the same pitiable in- 
firmity, I said nothing in reply to a statement you made 



PART III. 

LETTER 



Reception 

and 
rejection. 



LETTER 
XI. 



I^O 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
XI. 



" Half- 
educated. 1 ' 



A rbitrary 
ideas. 



School 
estimates. 



yesterday evening at dinner, but it occupied me in the 
hansom as it rolled between the monotonous lines of 
houses, and followed me even into my bedroom. I 
should like to answer it this morning, as one answers a 
letter. 

You said that our friend the painter was "half-edu- 
cated." This made me try to understand what it is to be 
three-quarters educated, and seven-eighths educated, and 
finally what must be that quite perfect state of the man 
who is whole-educated. 

I fear that you must have adopted some conventional 
idea about completeness of education, since you believe 
that there is any such thing as completeness, and that 
education can be measured by fractions, like the divisions 
of a two-foot rule. 

Is not such an idea just a little arbitrary ? It seems 
to be the idea of a schoolmaster, with his little list of 
subjects and his professional habit of estimating the 
progress of his boys by the good marks they are likely to 
obtain from their examiners. The half-educated school- 
boy would be a schoolboy half-way towards his bachelor's 
degree — is that it ? 

In the estimates of school and college this may be so, 
and it may be well to keep up the illusion, during boyhood, 
that there is such a thing attainable as the complete 
education that you assume. But the wider experience of 
manhood tends rather to convince us that no one can 
be fully educated, and that the more rich and various 
the natural talents, the greater will be the difficulty of 
educating the whole of them. Indeed it does not appear 
that in a state of society so advanced in the different 
specialities as ours is, men were ever intended to do more 
than develop by education a few of then natural gifts. 



OF EDUCATION. 



131 



The only man who came near to a complete education 
was Leonardo da Vinci, but such a personage would be 
impossible to-day. No contemporary Leonardo could 
be at the same time a leader in fine art, a great military 
and civil engineer, and a discoverer in theoretical science ; 
the specialists have gone too far for him. Born in our day, 
Leonardo would have been either a specialist or an ama- 
teur. Situated even as he was, in a time and country so 
remarkably favourable to the general development of a 
variously gifted man, he still fell short of the complete ex- 
pansion of all his extraordinary faculties. He was a great 
artist, and yet his artistic power was never developed 
beyond the point of elaborately careful labour ; he never 
attained the assured manipulation of Titian and Paul 
Veronese, not to mention the free facility of Velasquez, or 
the splendid audacity of Rubens. His natural gifts were 
grand enough to have taken him to a pitch of mastery 
that he never reached, but his mechanical and scientific 
tendencies would have their development also, and with- 
drew so much time from art that every renewal of his 
artistic labour was accompanied by long and anxious 
reflection. 

The word " education" is used in senses so different 
that confusion is not always avoided. Some people mean 
by it the acquisition of knowledge, others the develop- 
ment of faculty. If you mean the first, then the half- 
educated man would be a man who knew half what he 
ought to know, or who only half knew the different 
sciences, which the wholly educated know thoroughly. 
Who is to fix the subjects? Is it the opinion of the 
learned ? — if so, who are the learned ? " A learned man ! 
—a scholar ! — a man of erudition ! Upon whom are 
these epithets of approbation bestowed ? Are they given 

K 2 



PART III. 

LETTER 



Leonardo 
da Vinci. 



He stopped 

short of 

perfect 

mastery in 

painting- 



The learned. 



H2 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
XI. 

Who are the 
learned ? 



Clerical 
education. 



to men acquainted with the science of government? 
thoroughly masters of the geographical and commer- 
cial relations of Europe? to men who know the 
properties of bodies, and their action upon each 
other? No: this is not learning; it is chemistry, or 
political economy, not learning. The distinguishing 
abstract term, the epithet of Scholar, is reserved for him 
who writes on the ^Eolic reduplication, and is familiar 
with the Sylburgian method of arranging defectives 
in &> and \xi. The picture which a young Englishman, 
addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, draws — his 
beau ideal of human nature — his top and consummation 
of man's powers — is a knowledge of the Greek language. 
His object is not to reason, to imagine, or to invent ; but 
to conjugate, decline, and derive. The situations of 
imaginary glory which he draws for himself, are the 
detection of an anapaest in the -wrong place, or the 
restoration of a dative case which Cranzius had passed 
over, and the never-dying Ernesti failed to observe." 

By the help of the above passage from an article 
written sixty-three years ago by Sydney Smith, and by the 
help of another passage in the same paper where he tells 
us that the English clergy bring up the first young men of 
the country as if they were all to keep grammar schools 
in little country towns, I begin to understand what you 
mean by a half-educated person. You mean a person 
who is only half qualified for keeping a grammar school. 
In this sense it is very possible that our friend the painter 
possesses nothing beyond a miserable fraction of educa- 
tion. And yet he has picked up a good deal of valuable 
knowledge outside the technical acquirement of a most 
difficult profession. He studied two years in Paris, and 
| four years in Florence and Rome. He sp^ks French 



OF EDUCATION. 



*33 



and Italian quite fluently, and with a fair degree of cor- 
rectness. His knowledge of those two languages is 
incomparably more complete, in the sense of practical 
possession, than our fossilized knowledge of Latin, and 
he reads them almost as we read English, currently, 
and without translating. He has the heartiest enjoy- 
ment of good literature ; there is evidence in his pictures 
of a most intelligent sympathy with the greatest inven- 
tive writers. Without having a scientific nature, he 
knows a good deal about anatomy. He has not read 
Greek poetry, but he has studied the old Greek mind in 
its architecture and sculpture. Nature has also endowed 
him with a just appreciation of music, and he knows the 
immortal masterpieces of the most illustrious composers. 
All these things would not qualify him to teach a gram- 
mar school, and yet what Greek of the age of Pericles 
ever knew half so much ? 

This for the acquisition of knowledge ; now for the 
development of faculty. In this respect he excels us 
as performing athletes excel the people in the streets. 
Consider the marvellous accuracy of his eye, the pre- 
cision of his hand, the closeness of his observation, the 
vigour ot his memory and invention ! How clumsy anii 
rude is the most learned pedant in comparison with the 
refinement of this delicate organization ! Try to imagine 
what a disciplined creature he has become, how obedient 
are all his faculties to the commands of the central will ! 
The brain conceives some image of beauty or wit, and 
immediately that clear conception is telegraphed to the 
well-trained fingers. Surely, if the results of education 
may be estimated from the evidences of skill, here are 
some of the most wonderful of such results. 



PART III. 

LETTER 
XI. 

A painter's 
knoivledge. 



His skill. 



PART IV. 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



LETTER I. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
I. 



Time thrift. 



lO A MAN OF LEISURE WHO COMPLAINED OF WANT OF TIME. 

Necessity for time-thrift in all cases — Serious men not much In 
danger from mere frivolity — Greater danger of losing time in 
our serious pursuits themselves — Time thrown away when we do 
not attain proficiency — Soundness of former scholarship a good 
example — Browning's Grammarian — Knowledge an organic 
whole — Soundness the possession of essential parts — Necessity of 
fixed limits in our projects of study — Limitation of purpose in 
the fine arts — In languages — Instance of M. Louis Enault — In 
music — Time saved by following kindred pursuits — Order and 

. proportion the true secrets of time-thrift — A waste of time to 
leave fortresses untaken in our rear. 

You complain of want of time — you, with your bound- 
less leisure ! 

It is true that the most absolute master of his own 
hours still needs thrift if he would turn them to account, 
and that too many never learn this thrift, whilst others 
learn it late. Will you permit me to offer briefly a few 
observations on time-thrift which have been suggested to 
me by my own experience and by the experience of in 
tellectual friends ? 






THE POWER OF TIME. 



135 



It may be accepted for certain, to begin with, that 
men whc like yourself seriously care for culture, and 
make it, next to moral duty, the principal object of their 
lives, are but little exposed to waste time in downright 
frivolity of any kind. You may be perfectly idle at your 
own times, and perfectly frivolous even, whenever you 
have a mind to be frivolous, but then you will be clearly 
aware how the time is passing, and you will throw it away 
knowingly, as the most careful of money-economists will 
throw away a few sovereigns in a confessedly foolish 
amusement, merely for the relief of a break in the habit 
of his life. To a man of your tastes and temper there is 
no danger of wasting too much time so long as the waste 
is intentional ; but you are exposed to time-losses of a 
much more insidious character. 

It is in our pursuits themselves that we throw away our 
most valuable time. Few intellectual men have the art 
of economizing the hours of study. The very necessity, 
which everyone acknowledges, of giving vast portions of 
life to attain proficiency in anything, makes us prodigal 
where we ought to be parsimonious, and careless where 
we have need of unceasing vigilance. The best time- 
savers are the love of soundness in all we learn or 
do, and a cheerful acceptance of inevitable limitations. 
There is a certain point of proficiency at which an ac- 
quisition begins to be of use, and unless we have the 
time and resolution necessary to reach that point, our 
labour is as completely thrown away as that of a mechanic 
who began to make an engine but never finished it. 
Each of us has acquisitions which remain permanently 
unavailable from their unsoundness, a language or two 
that we can neither speak nor write, a science of which 
the elements have not been mastered, an art which we 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Waste in 

known 

frivolities 

not the most 

dangerous. 



Waste of 
time i?t otir 
serious 
work. 



Time- 
savers. 



136 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
I. 



Soundness 



The old 
scholars. 



Browning's 
Gramma- 
rian. 



cannot practise with satisfaction either to others or to 
ourselves. Now the time spent on these unsound ac- 
complishments has been in great measure wasted, not 
quite absolutely wasted, since the mere labour of trying 
to learn has been a discipline for the mind, but wasted 
so far as the accomplishments themselves are concerned/ 
And even this mental discipline, on which so much stress 
is laid by those whose interest it is to encourage unsound 
accomplishment, might be obtained more perfectly if the 
subjects of study were less numerous and more thoroughly 
understood. Let us not therefore in the studies of our 
maturity repeat the error of our youth. Let us determine 
to have soundness, that is, accurately organized know- 
ledge in the studies we continue to pursue, and let us 
resign ourselves to the necessity for abandoning those 
pursuits in which soundness is not to be hoped for. 

The old-fashioned idea about scholarship in Latin and 
Greek, that it ought to be based upon thorough gramma- 
tical knowledge, is a good example, so far as it goes, of 
what soundness really is. That ideal of scholarship failed 
only because it fell short of soundness in other directions 
and was not conscious of its failure. But there existed, 
in the minds of the old scholars, a fine resolution to be 
accurate, and a determination to give however much 
labour might be necessary for the attainment of accuracy, 
in which there was much grandeur. Like Mr. Browning's 
Grammarian, they said — 

" Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least 
Painful or easy :" 

and so at least they came to know the ancient tongues 
grammatically, which few of us do in these days. 

I should define each kind of knowledge as an organic 






THE POWER OF TIME. 



ni 



whole and soundness as the complete possession of all 
the essential parts. For example, soundness in violin- 
playing consists in being able to play the notes in all the 
positions, in tune, and with a pure intonation, whatever 
may be the degree of rapidity indicated by the musical 
composer. Soundness in painting consists in being able 
to lay a patch of colour having exactly the right shape 
and tint. Soundness in the use of language consists in 
being able to put the right word in the right place. In 
each of the sciences, there are certain elementary notions 
without which sound knowledge is not possible, but these 
elementary notions are more easily and rapidly acquired 
than the elaborate knowledge or confirmed skill necessary 
to the artist or the linguist. A man may be a sound 
botanist without knowing a very great number of plants, 
and the elements of sound botanical knowledge may 
be printed in a portable volume. And so it is with all 
the physical sciences ; the elementary notions which are 
necessary to soundness of knowledge may be acquired 
rapidly and at any age. Hence it follows that all whose 
leisure for culture is limited, and who value soundness of 
knowledge, do wisely to pursue some branch of natural 
history rather than languages or the fine arts. 

It is well for everyone who desires to attain a perfect 
economy of time, to make a list of the different pursuits 
to which he has devoted himself, and to put a note 
opposite to each of them indicating the degree of its 
unsoundness with as little self-delusion as may be. After 
having done this, he may easily ascertain in how many of 
these pursuits a sufficient degree of soundness is attain- 
able for him, and when this has been decided he may at 
once effect a great saving by the total renunciation of the 
rest With regard to those which remain, and which are 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Soundness 
in painting. 

In language. 



Sounditess 
in science. 



Degrees of 
unsound- 
ness. 



138 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



The fixing 
of limits. 



In art. 



In 
languages. 



Louis 
EnaulU 



to be carried farther, the next thing to he settled is the 
exact limit of their cultivation. Nothing is so favourable 
to sound culture as the definite fixing of limits. Suppose, 
for example, that the student said to himself " I desire to 
know the flora of the valley I live in," and then set to 
work systematically to make a herbarium illustrating that 
flora, it is probable that his labour would be more 
thorough, his temper more watchful and hopeful, than if 
he set himself to the boundless task of the illimitable 
flora of the world. Or in the pursuit of fine art, an 
amateur discouraged by the glaring unsoundness of the 
kind of art taught by ordinary drawing-masters, would 
find the basis of a more substantial superstructure on a 
narrower but firmer ground. Suppose that instead of the 
usual messes of bad colour and bad form, the student 
produced work having some definite and not unattainable 
purpose, would there not be, here also, an assured eco- 
nomy of time? Accurate drawing is the basis of sound- 
ness in the fine arts, and an amateur, by perseverance, 
may reach accuracy in drawing ; this, at least, has been 
proved by some examples — not by many, certainly, but 
by some. In languages we may have a limited purpose 
also. That charming and most intelligent traveller, 
Louis Enault, tells us that he regularly gave a week to 
the study of each new language that he needed, and 
found that week sufficient. The assertion is not so pre- 
sumptuous as it appears. For the practical necessities of 
travelling M. £nault found that he required about four 
hundred words, and that, having a good memory, he was 
able to learn about seventy words a day. The secret of 
his success was the invaluable art of selection, and the 
strict limitation of effort in accordance with a precon- 
ceived design. A traveller not so well skilled in selection 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



IJ9 



might have learned a thousand words with less advantage 
to his travels, and a traveller less decided in purpose 
might have wasted several months on the frontier of 
every new country in hopeless efforts to master the 
intricacies of grammatical form. It is evident that in 
the strictest sense M. Enault's knowledge of Norwegian 
cannot have been sound, since he did not master the 
grammar, but it was sound in its own strictly limited way, 
since he got possession of the four hundred words which 
were to serve him as current coin. On the same principle 
it is a good plan for students of Latin and Greek who 
have not time to reach true scholarship (half a lifetime is 
necessary for that), to propose to themselves simply the 
reading of the original authors with the help of a literal 
translation. In this way they may attain a closer ac- 
quaintance with ancient literature than would be possible 
by translation alone, whilst on the other hand their read- 
ing will be much more extensive on account of its greater 
rapidity. It is, for most of us, a waste of time to read 
Latin and Greek without a translation, on account of the 
comparative slowness of the process ; but it is always an 
advantage to know what was really said in the original, 
and to test the exactness of the translator by continual 
reference to the ifisissima verba of the author. When the 
knowledge of the ancient language is not sufficient even 
for this, it may still be of use for occasional comparison, 
even though the passage has to be fought through a coups 
de dictionnaire. What most of us need in reference to 
the ancient languages is a frank resignation to a restric- 
tion of some kind. It is simply impossible for men 
occupied as most of us are in other pursuits to reach 
perfect scholarship in those languages, and if we reached 
it we should not have time to maintain it. 



PARI" IV. 

LET TiiK 



Readhig 

Litiii and 

Grje.'c 



140 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Modem 
languages. 



Music. 



Choice of an 
instrument 



In modern languages it is not so easy to fix limits 
satisfactorily. You may resolve to read French or 
German without either writing or speaking them, and 
that would be an effectual limit, certainly. But in 
practice it is found difficult to keep within that boundary 
if ever you travel or have intercourse with foreigners. 
And when once you begin to speak, it is so humiliating 
to speak badly, that a lover of soundness in accomplish- 
ment will never rest perfectly satisfied until he speaks 
like a cultivated native, which nobody ever did except 
under peculiar family conditions. 

In music the limits are found more easily. The 
amateur musician is frequently not inferior in feeling and 
taste to the more accomplished professional, and by 
selecting those compositions which require much feeling 
and taste for their interpretation, but not so much manual 
skill, he may reach a sufficient success. The art is to 
choose the very simplest music (provided of course that 
it is beautiful, which it frequently is), and to avoid all 
technical difficulties which are not really necessary to 
the expression of feeling. The amateur ought also to 
select the easiest instrument, an instrument in which the 
notes are made for him already, rather than one which 
compels him to fix the notes as he is playing. The violin 
tempts amateurs who have a deep feeling for music 
because it renders feeling as no other instrument can 
render it, but the difficulty of just intonation is almost 
insuperable unless the whole time is given to that one 
instrument. It is a fatal error to perform on several 
different instruments, and an amateur who has done 
so may find a desirable limitation in restricting himself 
to one. 

Much time is saved by following pursuits which help 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



141 



each other. It is a great help to a landscape painter to 
know the botany of the country he works in, for botany 
gives the greatest possible distinctness to his memory of 
all kinds of vegetation. Therefore, if a landscape painter 
takes to the study of science at all, he would do well to 
study botany, which would be of use in his painting, 
rather than chemistry or mathematics, which would be 
entirely disconnected from it. The memory easily 
retains the studies which are auxiliary to the chief pursuit. 
Entomologists remember plants well, the reason being 
that they find insects in them, just as Leslie the painter 
had an excellent memory for houses where there were 
any good pictures to be found. 

The secret of order and proportion in our studies is 
the true secret of economy in time. To have one main 
pursuit and several auxiliaries, but none that are not 
auxiliary, is the true principle of arrangement. Many 
hard workers have followed pursuits as widely discon- 
nected as possible, but this was for the refreshment of 
absolute change, not for the economy of time. 

Lastly, it is a deplorable waste of time to leave 
fortresses untaken in our rear. Whatever has to be 
mastered ought to be mastered so thoroughly that we 
shall not have to come back to it when we ought to be 
carrying the war far into the enemy's country. But to 
study on this sound principle, we require not to be 
hurried. And this is why, to a sincere student, all 
external pressure, whether of examiners, or poverty, or 
business engagements, which causes him to leave work 
behind him which was not done as it ought to have been 
done, is so grievously, so intolerably vexatious. 



PART IV. 
LETTEK 

1 

Kindred 
pursuits. 



Order and 
proportion 
in studies. 



Fortresses 

untaken in 

the rear. 



142 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
11. 



Quotation 

fain 

Sir A Helps ■ 



LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG MAN OF GREAT TALENT AND ENERGY WHO HAD 
MAGNIFICENT PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 

Mistaken estimates about time and occasion— The Unknown Element 
— Procrastination often time's best preserver — Napoleon's advice 
to do nothing at all — Use of deliberation and of intervals 
of leisure — Artistic advantages of calculating time — Prevalent 
childishness about time — Illusions about reading — Bad economy 
of reading in languages we have not mastered — That we ought 
to be thrifty of time, but not avaricious — Time necessary in pro- 
duction — Men who work best under the sense of pressure — 
Rossini — That these cases prove nothing against time-thrift — 
The waste of time from miscalculation — People calculate accu- 
rately for short spaces, but do not calculate so well for long ones 
— Reason for this — Stupidity of the Philistines about wasted 
time — Tbpffer and Claude Tillier — Retrospective miscalculations, 
and the regrets that result from them. 

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention 
to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read 
it in the original author ? On the same principle, people 
will give a higher price to a picture-dealer than they 
would have given to the painter himself. The picture 
that has been once bought has a recommendation, and 
the quoted passage is both recommended and isolated 
from the context. 

Trusting to this well-known principle, although I am 
aware that you have read everything that Sir Arthur 
Helps has published, I proceed to make the following 
quotation from one of his wisest books. 

" Time and occasion are the two important circum- 
stances in human life, as regards which the most mistaken 
estimates are made. And the error is universal. It 
besets even the most studious and philosophic men. 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



143 



This may notably be seen in the present day, when many 
most distinguished men have laid down projects for 
literature and philosophy, to be accomplished by them 
in their own lifetime, which would require several men 
and many lifetimes to complete ; and, generally speaking, 
if any person, who has passed the meridian of life, looks 
back upon his career, he will probably own that his 
greatest errors have arisen from his not having made 
sufficient allowance for the length of time which his 
various schemes required for their fulfilment." 

There are many traditional maxims about time which 
insist upon its brevity, upon the necessity of using it 
whilst it is there, upon the impossibility of recovering 
what is lost ; but the practical effect of these maxims upon 
conduct can scarcely be said to answer to their undeni- 
able importance. The truth is, that although they tell us 
to economize our time, they cannot, in the nature of 
things, instruct us as to the methods by which it is to be 
economized. Human life is so extremely various and 
complicated, whilst it tends every day to still greater 
variety and complication, that all maxims of a general 
nature require a far higher degree of intelligence in their 
application to individual cases than it ever cost originally 
to invent them. Any person gifted with ordinary com- 
mon sense can perceive that life is short, that time flies, 
that we ought to make good use of the present ; but it 
needs the union of much experience, with the most con- 
summate wisdom, to know exactly what ought to be done 
and what ought to be left undone — the latter being fre- 
quently by far the more important of the two. 

Amongst the favourable influences of my early life was 
the kindness of a venerable country gentleman, who had 
seen a great deal of the world and passed many years, 



PART IV. 

LETTEK 
II 



Traditional 
maxims- 



Difficulty 

of applying 

general 

maxims- 



144 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
II. 



Pitfalls. 



Mere luck. 



before he inherited his estates, in the practice of a laborious 
profession. I remember a theory of his, that experience 
was much less valuable than is generally supposed, be- 
cause, except in matters of simple routine, the problems 
that present themselves to us for solution are nearly always 
dangerous from the presence of some unknown element. 
The unknown element he regarded as a hidden pitfall, 
and he warned me that in my progress through life I might 
always expect to tumble into it. This saying of his has 
been so often confirmed since then, that I now count 
upon the pitfall quite as a matter of certainty. Very 
frequently I have escaped it, but more by good luck than 
good management. Sometimes I have tumbled into it, 
and when this misfortune occurred it has not unfrequently 
been in consequence of having acted upon the advice of 
some very knowing and experienced person indeed. We 
have all read, when we were boys, Captain Marryat's 
" Midshipman Easy." There is a passage in that story 
which may serve as an illustration of what is constantly 
happening in actual life. The boats of the Ha?'py were 
ordered to board one of the enemy's vessels ; young 
Easy was in command of one of these boats, and as they 
had to wait he began to fish. After they had received 
the order to advance, he delayed a little to catch his fish, 
and this delay not only saved him from being sunk by 
the enemy's broadside, but enabled him to board the 
Frenchman. Here the pitfall was avoided by idling 
away a minute of time on an occasion when minutes were 
like hours ; yet it was mere luck, not wisdom, which led 
to the good result. There was a sad railway accident on 
one of the continental lines last autumn ; a notable per- 
sonage would have been in the train if he had arrived in 
time for it, but his miscalculation saved him. In matters 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



145 



where there is no risk of the loss of life, but only of the 
waste of a portion of it in unprofitable employment, it 
frequently happens that procrastination, which is reputed 
to be the thief of time, becomes its best preserver. 
Suppose that you undertake an enterprise, but defer the 
execution of it from day to day : it is quite possible that 
in the interval some fact may accidentally come to your 
knowledge which would cause a great modification of 
your plan, or even its complete abandonment. Every 
thinking person is well aware that the enormous loss of 
time caused by the friction of our legislative machinery 
has preserved the country from a great deal of crude 
and ill-digested legislation. Even Napoleon the Great, 
who had a rapidity of conception and of action so far 
surpassing that of other kings and commanders that it 
seems to us almost supernatural, said that when you did 
not quite know what ought to be done it was best to do 
nothing at all. One of the most distinguished of living 
painters said exactly the same thing with reference to the 
practice of his art, and added that very little time would 
be needed for the actual execution of a picture if only 
the artist knew beforehand how and where to lay the 
colour. It so often happens that mere activity is a waste 
of time, that people who have a morbid habit of being 
busy are often terrible time-wasters, whilst, on the con* 
trary, those who are judiciously deliberate, and allow 
themselves intervals of leisure, see the way before them 
in those intervals, and save time by the accuracy of their 
calculations. 

A largely intelligent thrift of time is necessary to all 
great works— and many works are very great indeed 
relatively to the energies of a single individual, which 
pass unperceived in the tumult of the world. The 



PART IV. 
LETTER 

II. 



Use of 
retarding 
friction. 

Nafolcon I. 



Time-thrift 
necessary in 
great works. 



146 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



part iv. 

LETTER 
II. 



Gothic 
architecture 



Incongruous 
siytes. 



Childish 
delusions. 



advantages of calculating time are artistic as well as 
economical. I think that, in this respect, magnificent 
as are the cathedrals which the Gothic builders have left 
us, they committed an artistic error in the very immensity 
of their plans. They do not appear to have reflected 
that from the continual changes of fashion in architecture, 
incongruous work would be sure to intrude itself before 
their gigantic projects could be realized by the genera- 
tions that were to succeed them. For a work of that 
kind to possess artistic unity, it ought to be completely 
realized within the space of forty years. How great is 
the charm of those perfect edifices which, like the Sainte 
Chapelle, are the realization of one sublime idea ! And 
those changes in national thought which have made the 
old cathedrals a jumble of incongruous styles, have their 
parallel in the life of every individual workman. We 
change from year to year, and any work which occupies 
us for very long will be wanting, in unity of manner. 

Men are apt enough of themselves to fall into the most 
astonishing delusions about the opportunities which time 
affords, but they are even more deluded by the talk of 
the people about them. When children hear that a new 
carriage has been ordered of the builder, they expect to 
see it driven up to the door in a fortnight, with the paint 
quite dry on the panels. All people are children in this 
respect, except the workman, who knows the endless 
details of production ; and the workman himself, notwith- 
standing the lessons of experience, makes light of the 
future task. What gigantic plans we scheme, and how 
little we advance in the labour of a day ! Three pages of 
the book (to be half erased to-morrow), a bit of drapery 
in the picture that will probably have to be done over 
again, the imperceptible removal of an ounce of marble- 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



'47 



dust from the statue that seems as if it never would be 
finished ; so much from dawn to twilight has been the 
accomplishment of the golden hours. If there is one 
lesson which experience teaches, surely it is this, to make 
plans that are strictly limited, and to arrange our work 
in a practicable way within the limits that we must 
accept. Others expect so much from us that it seems 
as if we had accomplished nothing. " What ! have you 
done only that ? " they say, or we know by their looks 
that they are thinking it. 

The most illusory of all the work that we propose to 
ourselves is reading. It seems so easy to read, that we 
intend, in the indefinite future, to master the vastest 
literatures. We cannot bring ourselves to admit that the 
library we have collected is in great part closed to us 
simply by want of time. A dear friend of mine, who 
was a solicitor with a large practice, indulged in wonderful 
illusions about reading, and collected several thousand 
volumes, all fine editions, but he died without having cut 
their leaves. I like the university habit of making read- 
ing a business, and estimating the mastery of a few 
authors as a just title to consideration for scholarship. 
I should like very well to be shut up in a garden for a 
whole summer with no literature but the " Faery Queene," 
and one year I very nearly realized that project, but 
publishers and the postman interfered with it. After all, 
this business of reading ought to be less illusory than 
most others, for printers divide books into pages, which 
they number, so that, with a moderate skill in arithmetic, 
one ought to be able to foresee the limits of his possi- 
bilities. There is another observation which may be 
suggested, and that is to take note of the time required 
fur reading different languages. W r e read very slowly! 

L 2 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
II. 

Limited 
plans. 



Illusions 

abjut 
reading. 



148 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
II. 

Time lost 
in 

grammars 

and 
dictionaries. 



Thrift not 
avarice. 



' Give it 
time." 



when the language is imperfectly mastered, and we need 
the dictionary, whereas in the native tongue we see the 
whole page almost at a glance, as if it were a picture. 
People whose time for reading is limited ought not to 
waste it in grammars and dictionaries, but to confine 
themselves resolutely to a couple of languages, or three 
at the very utmost, notwithstanding the contempt of 
polyglots, who estimate your learning by the variety of 
your tongues. It is a fearful throwing away of time, from 
the literary point of view, to begin more languages than 
you can master or retain, and to be always puzzling your- 
self about irregular verbs. 

All plans for sparing time in intellectual matters 
ought, however, to proceed upon the principle of thrift, 
and not upon the principle of avarice. The object of 
the thrifty man in money matters is so to lay out his 
money as to get the best possible result from his ex- 
penditure ; the object of the avaricious man is to spend 
no more money than he can help. An artist who 
taught me painting often repeated a piece of advice 
which is valuable in other things than art, and which 
I try to remember whenever patience fails. He used 
to say to me, " Give it time." The mere length of time 
that we bestow upon our work is in itself a most im- 
portant element of success, and if I object to the use 
of languages that we only half know, it is not because it 
takes us a long time to get through a chapter, but because 
we are compelled to think about syntax and conjugations 
which did not in the least occupy the mind of the author, 
when we ought rather to be thinking about those things 
which did occupy his mind, about the events which he 
narrated, or the characters that he imagined or described. 
There are, in truth, only two ways of impressing anything 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



149 



on the memory, either intensity or duration. If you saw 
a man struck down by an assassin, you would remember 
the occurrence all your life ; but to remember with equal 
vividness a picture of the assassination, you would pro- 
bably be obliged to spend a month or two in copying it. 
The subjects of our studies rarely produce an intensity 
of emotion sufficient to ensure perfect recollection with- 
out the expenditure of time. And when your object is 
not to learn, but to produce, it is well to bear in mind 
that everything requires a certain definite time-outlay, 
which cannot be reduced without an inevitable injury to 
quality. A most experienced artist, a man of the very 
rarest executive ability, wrote to me the other day about 
a set of designs I had suggested. " If I could but get 
the TIME," — the large capitals are his own, — "for, some- 
how or other, let a design be never so studiously simple 
in the masses, it will fill itself as it goes on, like the weasel 
in the fable who got into the meal-tub ; and when the 
pleasure begins in attempting tone and mystery and 
intricacy, away go the hours at a gallop." A well-known 
and very successful English dramatist wrote to me : 
" When I am hurried, and have undertaken more work 
than I can execute in the time at my disposal, I am 
always perfectly paralysed." 

There is another side to this subject which deserves 
attention. Some men work best under the sense of 
pressure. Simple compression evolves heat from iron, 
so that there is a flash of fire when a ball hits the side 
of an ironclad. The same law seems to hold good in 
the intellectual life of man, whenever he needs the 
stimulus of extraordinary excitement. Rossini positively 
advised a young composer never to write his overture until 
the evening before the first performance. "Nothing," 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
II. 

Intensity 

and 
duration. 



Galloping 
hours- 



The sense 0/ 
pressure- 



Rossini. 



i-,o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

I.ZTTER 
II. 

Rossini. 



Time 
enough. 



he said, " excites inspiration like necessity ; the pre- 
sence of a copyist waiting for your work, and tne*view 
of a manager in despair tearing out his hair <jy band- 
fuls. In Italy in my time, all the managers were bald at 
thirty. I composed the overture to ' Othello' in a small 
room in the Barbaja Palace, where the baldest and most 
ferocious of managers had shut me up by force with 
nothing but a dish of maccaroni, and the threat that I 
should not leave the place alive until I had written the 
last note. I wrote the overture to the ' Gazza Ladra ' on 
the day of the first performance, in the upper loft of the 
La Scala, where I had been confined by the manager, 
under the guard of four scene-shifters who had orders to 
throw my text out of the window bit by bit to copyists, 
who were waiting below to transcribe it. In default of 
music I was to be thrown out myself." 

I have quoted the best instance known to me of this 
voluntary seeking after pressure, but striking as it is, even 
this instance does not weaken what I said before. For 
observe, that although Rossini deferred the composition 
of his overture till the evening before the first perform- 
ance, he knew very well that he could do it thoroughly 
in the time. He was like a clever schoolboy who knows 
that he can learn his lesson in the quarter of an hour 
before the class begins; or he was like an orator who 
knows that he can deliver a passage and compose at the 
same time the one which is to follow, so that he prefers 
to arrange his speech in the presence of his audience. 
Since Rossini always allowed himself all the time that 
was necessary for what he had to do, it is clear that he 
did not sin against the great time-necessity. The express 
which can travel from London to Edinburgh in a night 
may leave the English metropolis on Saturday evening 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



i^r 



although it is due in Scotland on Sunday, and still act 
with the strictest consideration about time. The blame- 
able error lies in miscalculation, and not in rapidity of 
performance. 

Nothing wastes time like miscalculation. It negatives 
all results. It is the parent of incompleteness, the great 
author of the Unfinished and the Unserviceable. Almost 
every intellectual man has laid out great masses of time 
on five or six different branches of knowledge which are 
not of the least use to him, simply because he has not 
carried them far enough, and could not carry them far 
enough in the time he had to give. Yet this might have 
been ascertained at the beginning by the simplest arith- 
metical calculation. The experience of students in all 
departments of knowledge has quite definitely ascertained 
the amount of time that is necessary for success in them, 
and the successful student can at once inform the aspi- 
rant how far he is likely to travel along the road. What 
is the use, to anybody, of having just enough skill to 
feel vexed with himself that he has no more, and yet 
angry at other people for not admiring the little that he 
possesses ? 

I wish to direct your attention to a cause which more 
than any other produces disappointment in ordinary in- 
tellectual pursuits. It is this. People can often calculate 
with the utmost accuracy what they can accomplish in 
ten minutes or even in ten hours, and yet the very same 
persons will make the most absurd miscalculations about 
what they can accomplish in ten years. There is of 
course a reason for this : if there were not, so many 
sensible people would not suffer from the delusion. The 
reason is, that owing to the habits of human life there is 
j. certain elasticity in large spaces of time that include 



part iv. 

LETTER 



Waste of 
time by mis- 
calculation. 



Calculating 

for short 

and long 

spaces. 



152 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
II. 



The 

elasticity of 
fane- 



Value of 
idle hours. 



nights, and meal-times, and holidays. We fancy that 
we shall be able, by working harder than we have been 
accustomed to work, and by stealing hours from all the 
different kinds of rest and amusement, to accomplish far 
more in the ten years that are to come than we have 
ever actually accomplished in the same space. And to 
a certain extent this may be very true. No doubt a 
man whose mind has become seriously aware of the vast 
importance of economizing his time will economize it 
better than he did in the days before the new conviction 
came to him. No doubt, after skill in our work has 
been confirmed, we shall perform it with increased speed. 
But the elasticity of time is rather that of leather than 
that of india-rubber. There is certainly a degree of 
elasticity, but the degree is strictly limited. The true 
master of time-thrift would be no more liable to illusion 
about years than about hours, and would act as prudently 
when working for remote results as for near ones. 

Not that we ought to work as if we were always under 
severe pressure. Little books are occasionally published 
in which we are told that it is a sin to lose a minute. 
From the intellectual point of view this doctrine is 
simply stupid. What the Philistines call wasted time is 
often rich in the most varied experience to the intelligent. 
If all that we have learned in idle moments could be 
suddenly expelled from our minds by some chemical 
process, it is probable that they would be worth very 
little afterwards. What, after such a process, would have 
remained to Shakespeare, Scott, Cervantes, Thackeray, 
Dickens, Hogarth, Goldsmith, Moliere? When these 
great students of human nature were learning most, the 
sort of people who write the foolish little books just 
alluded to would have wanted to send them home to 



THE POWER OE TIME. 



153 



the dictionary or the desk. TcpfTer and Claude Tillier, 
both men of delicate and observant genius, attached 
the greatest importance to hours of idleness. Topffer 
said that a year of downright loitering was a desirable 
element in a liberal education ; whilst Claude Tillier 
went even farther, and boldly affirmed that " le temps le 
mieux employe est celui que Ton perd." 

Let us not think too contemptuously of the miscal- 
culators of time, since not one of us is exempt from 
their folly. We have all made miscalculations, or more 
frequently have simply omitted calculation altogether, 
preferring childish illusion to a manly examination of 
realities ; and afterwards as life advances another illusion 
steals over us not less vain than the early one, but bitter 
as that was sweet. We now begin to reproach ourselves 
with all the opportunities that have been neglected, and 
now our folly is to imagine that we might have done 
impossible wonders if we had only exercised a little 



resolution. We 



might 



have been thorough classical 



scholars, and spoken all the great modern languages, 
and written immortal books, and made a colossal fortune. 
Miscalculations again, and these the most imbecile of 
all ; for the youth who forgets to reason in the glow of 
happiness and hope, is wiser than the man who over- 
estimates what was once possible that he may embitter 
the days which remain to him. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Tillier. 



The illusion 
of youth. 



The illusion 
0/ maturity. 



154 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
III. 



Victor 
Jacqitc 
mcmt. 



German 
workers. 



LETTER III. 

TO A MAN OF BUSINESS WHO DESIRED TO MAKE HIMSELF BETTER 
ACQUAINTED WITH LITERATURE, BUT WHOSE TIME FOR READ- 
ING WAS LIMITED. 

Victor Jacquemont on the intellectual labours of the Germans — ■ 
Business may be set off as the equivalent to one of their pursuits 
— Necessity for regularity in the economy of time — What may 
be done in two hours a day — Evils of interruption — Florence 
Nightingale — Real nature of interruption — Instance from the 
Apology of Socrates. 

In the charming and precious letters of Victor Jacque- 
mont, a man whose life was dedicated to culture, and 
who not only lived for it, but died for it, there is a 
passage about the intellectual labours of Germans, which 
takes due account of the expenditure of time. " Comme 
j'etais etonne," he says, " de la prodigieuse varie'te et de 
l'e'tendue de connaissances des Allemands, je demandai 
un jour a. Tun de mes amis, Saxon de naissance et l'un 
des premiers geologues de l'Europe, comment ses com- 
patriotes s'y prenaient pour savoir tant de choses. Voici 
sa re'ponse, a peu pres : ' Un Allemand (moi excepte qui 
suis le plus paresseux des hommes) se leve de bonne 
heure, e'te et hiver, a cinq heures environ. II travaille 
quatre heures avant le dejeuner, fumant quelquefois pen- 
dant tout ce temps, sans que cela nuise a son application. 
Son dejeuner dure une demi-heure, et il reste, apres, une 
autre demi-heure a causer avec sa femme et a faire jouer 
ses enfants. II retourne au travail pour six heures ; dine 
sans se presser ; fume une heure apres le diner, jouant 
encore avec ses enfants; et avant de se coucher il tra- 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



155 



LETTER 
III 



vaille encore quatre heures. II recommence tous lesir 
jours, ne sortant jamais. — Voila,' me die mon ami, * com- 
ment Oersted, le plus grand physicien de l'Allemagne, en 
est aussi le plus grand medecin ; voila comment Kant 
le me'taphysicien etait un des plus savants astronomes de 
l'Europe, et comment Goethe, qui en est actuellement 
le premier litterateur, dans presque tous les genres, et 
le plus fecond, est excellent botaniste, mineralogiste, 
physicien.'" 1 

Here is something to encourage, and something to 
discourage you at the same time. The number of hours 
which these men have given in order to become what 
they were, is so great as to be past all possibility of imi- 
tation by a man occupied in business. It is clear that, 
with your counting-house to occupy you during the best 
hours of every day, you can never labour for your intel- 



1 "Being astonished at the prodigious variety and at the 
extent of knowledge possessed by the Germans, I begged one 
of my friends, Saxon by birth, and one of the foremost geologists 
in Europe, to tell me how his countrymen managed to know so many 
things. Here is his answer, nearly in his own words : — ' A German 
(except myself, who am the idlest of men) gets up early, summer and 
winter, at about five o'clock. He works four hours before breakfast, 
sometimes smoking all the time, which does not interfere with his 
application. His breakfast lasts half an horn, and he remains, after- 
wards, another half-hour talking with his wife and playing with his 
children. He returns to his work for six hours, dines without 
hurrying himself, smokes an hour after dinner, playing again with his 
children, and before he goes to bed he works four hours more. He 
begins again every day, and never goes out. This is how it comes to 
pass that Oersted, the greatest natural philospher in Germany, is at 
the same time the greatest physician ; this is how Kant the metaphy 
sician was one of the most learned astronomers in Europe, and how 
Goethe, who is at present the first and most fertile author in Germany 
in almost all kinds of literature, is an excellent botanist, mineralogist, 
and natural philosopher.' " 



Discourage' 
in 11! and 
encourage- 
ment . 



Quotation 

from 

Victor 

Jacque- 

mont- 



x 5 6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
III. 



Varied 
pursuits. 



Practical 
people' 



1 '> if ere nee. 



lectual culture with that unremitting application which 
these men have given for theirs. But, on the other hand, 
you will perceive that these extraordinary workers have 
hardly ever been wholly dedicated to one pursuit, and 
the reason for this in most cases is clear. Men who 
go through a prodigious amount of work feel the ne- 
cessity for varying it. The greatest intellectual workers 
I have known personally have varied their studies as 
Kant and Goethe did, often taking up subjects of the 
most opposite kinds, as for instance imaginative litera- 
ture and the higher mathematics, the critical and practi- 
cal study of fine art and the natural sciences, music, and 
political economy. The class of intellects which arrogate 
to themselves the epithet " practical," but which we call 
Philistine, always oppose this love of variety, and have an 
unaffected contempt for it, but these are matters beyond 
their power of judgment. They cannot know the needs 
of the intellectual life, because they have never lived it. 
The practice of all the greatest intellects has been to 
cultivate themselves variously, and if they have always 
done so, it must be because they have felt the need 
of it. 

The encouraging inference which you may draw from 
this in reference to your own case is that, since all intel- 
lectual men have had more than one pursuit, you may 
set off your business against the most absorbing of their 
pursuits, and for the rest be still almost as rich in time 
as they have been. You may study literature as some 
painters have studied it, or science as some literary men 
have studied it. 

The first step is to establish a regulated economy of 
your time, so that, without interfering with a due atten- 
tion to business and to health, you may get two clear 



THE POWER OF TIME 



*57 



hours every day for reading of the best kind. It is not 
much, some men would tell you that it is not enough, but 
I purposely fix the expenditure of time at a low figure 
because I want it to be always practicable consistently 
with all the duties and necessary pleasures of your life. 
If I told you to read four hours every day, I know before- 
hand what would be the consequence. You would keep 
the rule for three days, by an effort, then some engage- 
ment would occur to break it, and you would have no 
rule at all. And please observe that the two hours are 
to be given quite regularly, because, when the time given 
is not much, regularity is quite essential. Two hours a 
day, regularly, make more than seven hundred hours in 
a year, and in seven hundred hours, wisely and uninter- 
ruptedly occupied, much may be done in anything. 

Permit me to insist upon that word unintewuptedly. 
Few people realize the full evil of an interruption, few 
people know all that is implied by it. After warning 
nurses against the evils of interruption, Florence Nightin- 
gale says : — 

"These things are not fancy. If we consider that, 
with sick as with well, every thought decomposes some 
nervous matter — that decomposition as well as re-com- 
position of nervous matter is always going on, and more 
quickly with the sick than with the well, — that to ob- 
trude another thought upon the brain whilst it is in the 
act of destroying nervous matter by thinking, is calling 
upon it to make a new exertion — if we consider these 
things, which are facts, not fancies, we shall remember 
that we are doing positive injury by interrupting, by 
startling a ' fanciful ' person, as it is called. Alas, it is no 
fancy. 

" If the invalid is forced by his avocs tions to con- 



PART IV. 

LETTEK 
III 

Practicable 
rules. 



Two hours 
daily- 



Evils of 
interrup- 
tion. 



i 5 8 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
III. 

Effects of 
interrup- 
tion on the 
sick. 



On the 
healthy also 



D'ffereirt 
kinds of 
interrup- 
tion. 



tin ue occupations requiring much thinking, the injury is 
doubly great. In feeding a patient suffering under deli- 
rium or stupor you may suffocate him by giving him his 
food suddenly, but if you rub his lips gently with a 
spoon and thus attract his attention, he will swallow the 
food unconsciously, but with perfect safety. Thus it is 
with the brain. If you offer it a thought, especially one 
requiring a decision, abruptly, you do it a real, not fanci- 
ful, injury. Never speak to a sick person suddenly j 
but, at the same time, do not keep his expectation on 
the tiptoe." • 

To this you will already have answered, mentally, 
that you are not a patient suffering under either delirium 
or stupor, and that nobody needs to rub your lips gently 
with a spoon. But Miss Nightingale does not consider 
interruption baneful to sick persons only. 

" This rule indeed/' she continues, "applies to the well 
quite as much as to the sick. I have never known persons 
who exposed themselves for years to constant interruption 
who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last. 
The process, with them, may be accomplished without 
pain-. With the sick, pain gives warning of the injury." 

Interruption is an evil to the reader which must be 
estimated very differently from ordinary business inter- 
ruptions. The great question about interruption is not 
whether it compels you to divert your attention to other 
facts, but whether it compels you to tune your whole 
mind to another diapason. Shopkeepers are incessantly 
compelled to change the subject ; a stationer is asked 
for notepaper one minute, for sealing-wax the next, and 
immediately afterwards for a particular sort of steel pen. 
The subjects of his thoughts are changed very rapidly, 
but the general state of his mind is not changed ; he is 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



*59 



always strictly in his shop, as much mentally as phy- 
sically. When an attorney is interrupted in the study of 
a case by the arrival of a client who asks him questions 
about another case, the change is more difficult to bear ; 
yet even here .the general state of mind, the legal state of 
mind, is not interfered with. But now suppose a reader 
perfectly absorbed in his author, an author belonging 
very likely to another age and another civilization 
entirely different from ours. Suppose that you are 
reading the Defence of Socrates in Plato, and have the 
whole scene before you as in a picture : the tribunal of the 
Five" Hundred, the pure Greek architecture, the interested 
Athenian public, the odious Melitus, the envious enemies, 
the beloved and grieving friends whose names are dear 
to us, and immortal; and in the centre you see one 
figure draped like a poor man, in cheap and common 
cloth, that he wears winter and summer, with a face 
plain to downright ugliness, but an air of such genuine 
courage and self-possession that no acting could imitate 
it ; and you hear the firm voice saying— 

Ti/aarai 8' obv fiot dvrjp Qav&rov. 
Ehv. 1 

You are just beginning the splendid paragraph where 
Socrates condemns himself to maintenance in the 
Prytaneum, and if you can only be safe from interrup- 
tion till it is finished, you will have one of those minutes 
of noble pleasure which are the rewards of intellectual 
toil. But if you are reading in the daytime in a house 
where there are women and children, or where people 
can fasten upon you for pottering details of business, 
you may be sure that you will not be able to get to the 
1 The man, then, judges me worthy of death. Be it so. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
III. 



Interrup- 
tion in 
reading- 



Instance 
from Plato. 



i6o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
III. 

Interrup- 
tion- 



LETTER 
IV. 



Uses of 
hurry 



end of the passage without in some way or other being 
rudely awakened from your dream, and suddenly brought 
back into the common world. The loss intellectually is 
greater than anyone who had not suffered from it could 
imagine. People think that an interruption is merely 
the unhooking of an electric chain, and that the current 
will flow, when the chain is hooked on again, just as it 
did before. To the intellectual and imaginative student 
an interruption is not that ; it is the destruction of a 
picture. 



LETTER IV. 

TO A STUDENT WHO FELT HURRIED AND DRIVEN. 

People who like to be hurried — Sluggish temperaments gain vivacity 
under pressure — Routine work may be done at increased speed 
— The higher intellectual work cannot be done hurriedly — The 
art of avoiding hurry consists in Selection — How it was practised 
by a good landscape painter — Selection in reading and writing- 
Some studies allow the play of selection more than others do — 
Languages permit it less than natural sciences — Difficulty of 
using selection in the fulfilment of literary engagements. 

So you have got yourself into that pleasant condi- 
tion which is about as agreeable, and as favourable to 
fruitful study and observation, as the condition of an 
over-driven cab-horse ! 

Very indolent men, who will not work at all unless 
under the pressure of immediate urgency, sometimes tell 
us that they actually like to be hurried ; but although 
certain kinds of practical work which have become per- 
fectly easy from habit may be got through at a great pace 
when the workman feels that there is an immediate 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



161 



necessity for effort, it is certainly not true that hurry is 
favourable to sound study of any kind. Work which 
merely runs in a fixed groove may be urged on occa- 
sionally at express speed without any perceptible injury 
to the quality of it. A clever violinist can play a passage 
prestissimo as correctly as if he played it adagio; a 
banker's clerk can count money very rapidly with posi- 
tively less risk of error than if he counted it as you and 
I do. A person of sluggish temperament really gains 
in vivacity when he is pressed for time, and becomes 
during those moments of excited energy a clearer-headed 
and more able person than he is under ordinary cir- 
cumstances. It is therefore not surprising that he should 
find himself able to accomplish more under the great 
stimulus of an immediate necessity than he is able to do 
in the dulness of his every-day existence. Great prodigies 
of labour have been performed in this way to avert im- 
pending calamity, especially by military officers in critical 
times like those of the Sepoy rebellion ; and in the 
obscurer lives of tradesmen,* immense exertions are often 
made to avert the danger of bankruptcy, when without 
the excitement of a serious anxiety of that kind the 
tradesman would not feel capable of more than a mode- 
rate m and reasonable degree of attention to his affairs. 
But notwithstanding the many instances of this kind 
which might be cited, and the many more which might 
easily be collected, the truth remains that the highest 
kinds of intellectual labour can hardly ever be properly 
performed when the degree of pressure is in the least 
excessive. You may, for example, if you have the kind 
of ability which makes a good journalist, write an effec- 
tive leader with your watch lying on the table, and finish 
it exactly when the time is up ; but if you had the kind of 

M 



PART IV. 

LETTEK 



Vivacity 

gained 

imder 

pressure* 



Prodigies of 

labour 

wider 

pressure. 



1 62 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Poets and 
discoverers. 



Selection- 



In painting 



ability which makes a good poet, you could not write 
anything like highly-finished poetry against time. It is 
equally clear that scientific discovery, which, though it 
may flash suddenly upon the mind of the discoverer, is 
always the result of long brooding over the most patient 
observations, must come at its own moments, and cannot 
be commanded. The activity of poets and discoverers 
would be paralysed by exigencies which stimulate the 
activity of soldiers and men of business. The truth is, 
that intelligence and energy are beneficially stimulated 
by pressure from without, whereas the working of the 
higher intellect is impeded by it, and that to such a 
degree that in times of the greatest pressure the high 
intellectual life is altogether suspended, to leave free 
play to the lower but more immediately serviceable 
intelligence. 

This being so, it becomes a necessary part of the art 
of intellectual living so to order our work as to shield 
ourselves if possible, at least during a certain portion of 
our time, from the evil consequences of hurry. The 
whole secret lies in a single word — Selection. 

An excellent landscape painter told me that whatever 
he had to do, he always took the greatest pains to 
arrange his work so as never to have his tranquillity 
disturbed by haste. His system, which is quite applicable 
to many other things than landscape painting, was based 
on the principle of selection. He always took care to 
determine beforehand how much time he could devote 
to each sketch or study, and then, from the mass of 
natural facts before him, selected the most valuable facts 
which could be recorded in the time at his disposal. But 
however short that time might be, he was always per- 
fectly cool and deliberate in the employment of it 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



163 



Indeed this coolness and his skill in selection helped 
each other mutually, for he chose wisely because he was 
cool, and he had time to be cool by reason of the wisdom 
of his selection. In his little memoranda, done in five 
minutes, the lines were laid just as deliberately as the 
tints on an elaborate picture; the difference being in 
choice only, not in speed. 

Now, if we apply this art of selection to all our labours 
it will give us much of that landscape painter's enviable 
coolness, and enable us to work more satisfactorily. 
Suppose that instead of painting and sketching we have 
to do a great deal of reading and writing : the art is to 
select the reading which will be most useful to our pur- 
pose, and, in writing, to select the words which will 
express our meaning with the greatest clearness in a 
little space. The art of reading is to skip judiciously. 
Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we 
have the results of them in our modern culture without 
going over the ground again. And even of the books 
we decide to read, there are almost always large portions 
which do not concern us, and which we are sure to 
forget the day after we have read them. The art is to 
skip all that does not concern us, whilst missing nothing 
that we really need. No external guidance can teach us 
this ; for nobody but ourselves can guess what the needs 
of our intellect may be. But let us select with decisive 
firmness, independently of other people's advice, inde- 
pendently of the authority of custom. In every news- 
paper that comes to hand there is a little bit that we 
ought to read ; the art is to find that little bit, and waste 
no time over the rest. 

Some studies permit the exercise of selection better 
than others do. A language, once undertaken, permits 

M 2 



PART IV. 

LETTiiR 
IV. 



Selection in 

reading and 

writing. 



Skipping 



164 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
IV 



Selec'ion in 
writing. 



Compensa- 
tion. 



very little selection indeed, since you must know the 
whole vocabulary, or nearly so, to be able to read and 
speak. On the other hand, the natural sciences permit 
the most prudent exercise of selection. For example, in 
botany you may study as few plants as you choose. 

In writing, the art of selection consists in giving the 
utmost effect to expression in the fewest words ; but 
this art I say little, for who can contend against an in- 
evitable trade-necessity? Almost every author of ordi- 
nary skill could, when pressed for time, find a briefer 
expression for his thoughts, but the real difficulty in 
fulfilling literary engagements does not lie in the ex- 
pression of the thought, it lies in the sufficiently rapid 
production of a certain quantity of copy. For this pur- 
pose I fear that selection would be of very little use— of 
no more use, in fact, than in any other branch of manu- 
facture where (if a certain standard is kept up to) quantity 
in sale is more important than quality of material. 



LETTER V. 

TO A FRIEND WHO, THOUGH HE HAD NO PROFESSION, COULD 
NOT FIND TIME FOR HIS VARIOUS INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. 

Compensations resulting from the necessity for time — Opportunity 
only exists for us so far as we have time to make use of it — This 
w that, not this and that — Danger of apparently unlimited oppor- 
tunities — The intellectual training of our ancestors — Montaigne 
the Essayist — Reliance upon the compensations. 

It has always seemed to me that the great and beauti- 
ful principle of compensation is more clearly seen in the 
distribution and effects of time than in anything else 
within the scope of our experience. The good use of 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



165 



one opportunity very frequently compensates us for the 
absence of another, and it does so because opportunity is 
itself so dependent upon time that, although the best 
opportunities may apparently be presented to us, we can 
make no use of them unless we are able to give them the 
time that they require. You, who have the best possible 
opportunities for culture, find a certain sadness and 
disappointment because you cannot avail yourself of all 
of them ; but the truth is, that opportunity only exists for 
us just so far as we are able to make use of it, and our 
power to do so is often nothing but a question of time. 
If our days are well employed we are sure to have done 
some good thing which we should have been compelled 
to neglect if we had been occupied about anything else. 
Hence every genuine worker has rich compensations 
which ought to console him amply for his shortcomings, 
and to enable him to meet comparisons without fear. 

Those who aspire to the intellectual life, but have no 
experience of its difficulties, very frequently envy men so 
favourably situated as you are. It seems to them that 
all the world's knowledge is accessible to you, and that 
you have simply to cull its fruits as we gather grapes in 
a vineyard. They forget the power of Time, and the 
restrictions which Time imposes. " This or that, not this 
and that," is the rule to which all of us have to submit, 
and it strangely equalizes the destinies of men. The 
time given to the study of one thing is withdrawn from 
the study of another, and the hours of the day are 
limited alike for all of us. How difficult it is to reconcile 
the interests of our different pursuits ! Indeed it seems 
like a sort of polygamy to have different pursuits. It is 
natural to think of them as jealous wives tormenting 
some Mormon prophet. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Time and 
opportunity. 



Restrictions 
imposed by 

time- 



i65 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 
V 



Co77ipensa- 
(ions. 



Case of 

Montaigne 
the essayist. 



There is great danger in apparently unlimited oppor- 
tunities, and a splendid compensation for those who are 
confined by circumstances to a narrow but fruitful field. 
The Englishman gets more civilization out of a farm and 
a garden than the Red Indian out of the space encircled 
by his horizon. Our culture gains in thoroughness what 
it loses in extent. 

This consideration goes far to explain the fact that 
although our ancestors were so much less favourably 
situated than we are, they often got as good an intellectual 
training from the literature that was accessible to them, 
as we from our vaster stores. We live in an age of 
essayists, and yet what modern essayist writes better than 
old Montaigne ? All that a thoughtful and witty writer 
needs for the sharpening of his intellect, Montaigne 
found in the ancient literature that was accessible to him, 
and in the life of the age he lived in. Born in our own 
century, he would have learned many other things, no 
doubt, and read many other books, but these would have 
absorbed the hours that he employed not less fruitfully 
with the authors that he loved in the little library up in 
the third storey of his tower, as he tells us, where he could 
see all his books at once, set upon five rows of shelves 
round about him. In earlier life he bought " this sort of 
furniture " for " ornament and outward show," but after- 
wards quite abandoned that, and procured such volumes 
only " as supplied his own need." 

To supply our own need, within the narrow limits of 
the few and transient hours that we can call our own, is 
enough for the wise everywhere, as it was for Montaigne 
in his tower. Let us resolve to do as much as that, not 
more, and then rely upon the golden compensations. 



THE POWER OF TIME. 



167 



Note. — "Supposing that the executive and critical powers always 
exist in some correspondent degree in the same person, still they 
cannot be cultivated to the same extent. The attention required for 
the development of a theory is necessarily withdrawn from the de- 
sign of a drawing, and the time devoted to the realization of a form 
is lost to the solution of a problem." — Mr. Ruskin, in the preface to 
the third volume of " Modem Painter," 

In the case of Mr. Ruskin, in that of Mr. Dante Rossetti, and in 
all cases where the literary and artistic gifts are naturally pretty 
evenly balanced, the preponderance of an hour a day given to one or 
the other class of studies may have settled the question Avhether the 
student was to be chiefly artist or chiefly author. The enormous 
importance of the distribution of time is never more clearly mani- 
fested than in cases of this kind. Mr. Ruskin might certainly have 
attained rank as a painter, Rossetti might have been as prolific in 
poetry as he is excellent. What these gifted men are now is not so 
.much a question of talent as of time. In like manner the question 
whether Ingres was to be known as a painter or as a violinist was 
settled by the employment oi" hours rather than by any prepon- 
derance of faculty. 



PART IV. 

LETTER 



Dante 
Rossetti. 



Ruskin. 



Ingres. 



PART V. 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



LETTER J. 



TO A VERY RICH STUDENT. 



PART V. 

LETTER 



The author 

of 
" Vat he k" 



The author of " Vathek " — The double temptation of wealth — Rich 
men tempted to follow occupations in which their wealth is 
useful — Pressure of social duties on the rich — The Duchess of 
Orleans — The rich man's time not his own — The rich may help 
the general intellectual advancement by the exercise of patronage 
— Dr. Carpenter — Franz Wcepke. 

It has always seemed to me a very remarkable and note- 
worthy circumstance that although Mr. Beckford, the 
author of " Vathek," produced in his youth a story which 
bears all the signs of true inventive genius, he never 
produced anything in after-life which posterity cares to 
preserve. I read "Vathek" again quite recently,, to see 
how far my early enthusiasm for it might have been due 
to that passion for orientalism which reigned amongst us 
many years ago, but this fresh perusal left an impression 
which only genius leaves. Beckford really had invention, 
and an extraordinary narrative power. That such facul- 
ties, after having once revealed themselves, should con- 
tentedly have remained dormant ever afterwards, is one 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



1 09 



of the most curious facts in the history of the human 
mind, and it is the more curious that Beckford lived to a 
very advanced age. 

Beckford's case appears to have been one of those 
in which great wealth diminishes or wholly paralyses 
the highest energy of the intellect, leaving the lower 
energies free to exert less noble kinds of activity. A 
refined self-indulgence became the habit of his life, and 
he developed simply into a dilettant. Even his love for 
the fine arts did not rise above the indulgence of an 
elegant and cultivated taste. Although he lived at the 
very time most favourable to the appearance of a great 
critic in architecture and painting, the time of a great 
architectural revival and of the growth of a vigorous and 
independent school of contemporary art, he exercised no 
influence beyond that of a wealthy virtuoso. His love of 
the beautiful began and ended in simple personal grati- 
fication ; it led to no noble labour, to no elevating 
severity of discipline. Englishman though he was, he 
filled his Oriental tower with masterpieces from Italy and 
Holland, only to add form and colour to the luxuries of 
his reverie, behind his gilded lattices. 

And when he raised that other tower at Fonthill, and 
the slaves of the lamp toiled at it by torchlight to gratify 
his Oriental impatience, he exercised no influence upon 
the confusion of his epoch more durable than that hun- 
dred yards of masonry which sank into a shapeless heap 
whilst as yet Azrael spared its author. He to whom. 
Nature and Fortune had been so prodigal of their gifts, 
he whom Reynolds painted and Mozart instructed, who 
knew the poets of seven literatures, culling their jewels 
like flowers in seven enchanted gardens— he to whom the 
palaces of knowledge all opened their golden gates even 



part v. 

LETTER 



His dilet- 
tantism. 



His gifts 
and poivers. 



170 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
I. 

Beck/ord. 



Two hinds 

°f . 

temptations 

in great 
wealth. 



in his earliest youth, to whom were also given riches and 
length of days, for whom a thousand craftsmen toiled 
in Europe and a thousand slaves beyond the sea, 1 — 
what has this gifted mortal left as the testimony of his 
power, as the trace of his fourscore years upon the 
earth? Only the reminiscence of a vague splendour, 
like the fast-fading recollection of a cloud that burned 
at sunset, and one small gem of intellectual creation 
that lives like a tiny star. 

If wealth had only pleasure to offer as a temptation 
from intellectual labour, its influence would be easier to 
resist. Men of the English race are often grandly strong 
in resistance to every form of voluptuousness ; the race 
is fond of comfort and convenience, but it does not 
sacrifice its energy to enervating self-indulgence. There 
is, however, another order of temptations in great wealth, 
to which Englishmen not only yield, but yield with a 
satisfied conscience, even with a sense of obedience to 
duty. Wealth carries pleasure in her left hand, but in 
her right she bears honour and power. The rich man 
feels that he can do so much by the mere exercise of 
his command over the labour of others, and so little by 
any unaided labour of his own, that he is always strongly 
tempted to become, not only physically but intellec- 
tually, a director of work rather than a workman. Even 
his modesty, when he is modest, tends to foster his 
reliance on others rather than himself. All that he tries 
to do is done so much better by those who make it their 

1 This sounds like a poetical exaggeration, but it is less than the 
bare truth. There were fifteen hundred slaves on two West Indian 
estates that Beckford lost in a lawsuit. It is quite certain, considering 
his lavish expenditure, that fully a thousand men must have worked 
for the maintenance of his luxury in Europe. So much for his 
command of labour. 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



171 



profession, that he is always tempted to fall back upon 
his paying power as his most satisfactory and effective 
force. There are cases in which this temptation is 
gloriously overcome, where men of great wealth compel 
everyone to acknowledge that their money is nothing 
more than a help to their higher life, like the charger 
that bore Wellington at Waterloo, serving him indeed 
usefully, but not detracting from the honour which is 
his due. But in these cases the life is usually active or 
administrative rather than intellectual. The rich man 
does not generally feel tempted to enter upon careers 
in which his command over labour is not an evident 
advantage, and this because men naturally seek those 
fields in which all their superiorities tell. . Even the well- 
known instance of Lord Rosse can scarcely be considered 
an exception to this rule, for although he was eminent 
in a science which has been followed by poor men with 
great distinction, his wealth was of use in the construction 
of his colossal telescope, which gave him a clear advan- 
tage over merely professional contemporaries. 

Besides this natural desire to pursue careers in which 
their money may lessen the number of competitors, the 
rich are often diverted from purely intellectual pursuits 
by the social duties of their station, duties which it is 
impossible to avoid and difficult to keep within limits. 
The Duchess of Orleans (mother of the present Count 
of Paris) arranged her time with the greatest care so as 
to reserve a little of it for her own culture in uninter- 
rupted solitude. By an exact system, and the exercise 
of the rarest firmness, she contrived to steal half an 
hour here and an hour there — enough no doubt, when 
employed as she employed them, to maintain her 
character as a very distinguished lady, yet still far from 



PART V. 

LETTER 
I. 

Wealth used 
as a help 



Lord Rosse. 



Social duties 
0/ the rich. 



17- 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
I. 



Machinery 

for 

pleasure. 



Retreats. 



sufficient for the satisfactory pursuit of any great art or 
science. If it be difficult for the rich man to enter into 
the kingdom of heaven, it is also difficult for bim to 
secure that freedom from interruption which is necessary 
to fit him for his entrance into the Intellectual Kingdom. 
He can scarcely allow himself to be absorbed in any 
great study, when he reflects on all the powerful means 
of social influence which he is suffering to lie idle. He 
is sure to possess by inheritance, or to have acquired 
in obedience to custom, a complicated and expensive 
machinery for the pleasures and purposes of society. 
There is game to be shot ; there are hunters to be 
exercised ; great houses to be filled with guests. So 
much is expected of the rich man, both in business and 
in pleasure, that his time is not his own, and he could 
not quit his station if he would. And yet the Intel- 
lectual Life, in its fruitful perfection, requires, I do not 
say the complete abandonment of the world, but it 
assuredly requires free and frequent spaces of labour in 
tranquil solitude, "retreats" like those commanded by 
the Church of Rome, but with more of study and less 
of contemplation. 

It would be useless to ask you to abdicate your 
power, and retreat into some hermitage with a library 
and a laboratory, without a thought of returning to youi 
pleasant hall in Yorkshire and your house in Mayfair. 
You will not sell all and follow the Light, but there is a 
life which you may powerfully encourage, yet only partially 
share. Notwithstanding the increased facilities for earn- 
ing a living which this age offers to the intellectual, the 
time that they are often compelled to give to the satis- 
faction of common material necessities is so much time 
withdrawn from the work which they alone can do. It 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



173 



is a lamentable waste of the highest and rarest kind of 
energy to compel minds that are capable of original 
investigation, of discovery, to occupy themselves in that 
mere vulgarization of knowledge, in popular lecturing 
and literature, which could be done just as efficiently by 
minds of a common order. It is an error of the present 
age to believe that the time for what is called patronage 
is altogether passed away. Let me mention two instances 
to the contrary : one in which kindly help would have 
saved fifteen years of a noble life \ another in which that 
kindly help did actually permit a man of exceptional 
endowment and equally exceptional industry to pursue 
investigations for which no other human being was so 
well qualified, and which were entirely incompatible with 
the earning of the daily bread. Dr. Carpenter has lately 
told us that, finding it impossible to unite the work of 
a general practitioner with the scientific researches upon 
which his heart was set, he gave up nine-tenths of his 
time for twenty years to popular lecturing and writing, in 
order that he might exist and devote the other tenth to 
science. "Just as he was breaking down from the exces- 
sive strain upon mind and body which this life involved, 
an appointment was offered to Dr. Carpenter which gave 
him competence and sufficient leisure for the investiga- 
tions which he has conducted to such important issues." 
Suppose that during those twenty years of struggle he 
had broken down like many another only a little less 
robust — what then ? A mind lost to his country and the 
world. And would it not have been happier for him and 
for us if some of those men (of whom there are more 
in England than in any other land) who are so wealthy 
that their gold is positively a burden and an encumbrance- 
like too many coats in summer, had helped Dr Car- 



part v. 

LETTER 



Patronage. 



Dr. 

Carpenter. 



His early 
labours and 
Difficulties. 



174 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 



Franz 
IVazpke. 



Hwuboldt 



penter at least a few years earlier, in some form that a 
man of high feeling might honourably accept? The 
other example that I shall mention is that of Franz 
Wcepke, the mathematician and orientalist. A modest 
pension, supplied by an Italian prince who was interested 
in the history of mathematics, gave Wcepke that peace 
which is incompatible with poverty, and enabled him to 
live grandly in his narrow lodging the noble intellectual 
life. Was not this rightly and well done, and probably a 
much more effectual employment of the power of gold 
than if that Italian prince had added some rare manu- 
scripts to his own library without having time or knowledge 
to decipher them ? I cannot but think that the rich may 
serve the cause of culture best by a judicious exercise of 
patronage — unless, indeed, they have within themselves 
the sense of that irresistible vocation which made Hum- 
boldt use his fortune as the servant of his high ambition. 
The Humboldts never are too rich ; they possess their 
gold and are not possessed by it, and they are exempt 
from the duty of aiding others because they themselves 
have a use for all their powers. 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



m 



LETTER II. 

TO A GENIUS CARELESS IN MONEY MATTERS. 

Danger of carelessness — Inconveniences of poverty unfavourable to 
the Intellectual Life — Necessity advances men in industrial occu- 
pations, but disturbs and interrupts the higher intellectual life — 
Instances in science, literature, and art — Careers aided by wealth 
— Mr. Ruskin — De Saussure — Work spoiled by poverty in the 
doing — The central passion of men of ability is to do their 
work well — The want of money the most common hindrance to 
excellence of work — De Senancour — Bossuet — Sainte-Bcuve — 
Shelley — Wordsworth — Scott — Kepler — Tycho Brahe — Schiller 
— Goethe — Case of an eminent English philosopher, and of a 
French writer of school-primers — Loss of time in making experi- 
ments on public taste — Surtout ne pas trap ecrire — Auguste 
Comte — The reaction of the intellectual against money-making 
—Money the protector of the intellectual life. 

I have been anxious for you lately, and venture to write 
to you about the reasons for this anxiety. 

You are neither extravagant nor self-indulgent, yet it 
seems to me that your entire absorption in the higher 
intellectual pursuits has produced in you, as it frequently 
does, a carelessness about material interests of all kinds 
which is by far the most dangerous of all tempers to the 
pecuniary well-being of a man. Sydney Smith declared 
that no fortune could stand that temper long, and that 
we are on the high road to ruin the moment we think 
ourselves rich enough to be careless. 

Let me observe, to begin with, that although the 
pursuit of wealth is not favourable to the intellectual life, 
the inconveniences of poverty are even less favourable 
to it. We are sometimes lectured on the great benefits 
of necessity as a stimulant to exertion, and it is implied 



part v. 

LETTER 

II. 



Carelessness 

of material 

interests. 



176 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



PART v. 

LETTER 
II. 



Need in 

industrial 

occupations. 



Ca r es where 
poverty is a 
good teacher. 



that comfortable people would go much farther on the 
road to distinction if they were made uncomfortable by 
having to think perpetually about money. Those who 
say this confound together the industry of the industrial 
and professional classes, and the labours of the more 
purely intellectual. It is clear that when the labour a 
man does is of such a nature that he will be paid for 
it in strict proportion to the time and effort he bestows, 
the need of money will be a direct stimulus to the best 
exertion he may be capable of. In all simply industrial 
occupations the need of money does drive a man for- 
wards, and is often, when he feels it in early life, the very 
origin and foundation of his fortune. There exists, in 
such occupations, a perfect harmony between the present 
necessity and the ultimate purpose of the life. Wealth 
is the object of industry, and the first steps towards the 
possession of it are steps on the chosen path. The 
future captain of industry, who will employ thousands of 
workpeople and accumulate millions of money, is going 
straight to his splendid future when he gets up at five in 
the morning to work in another person's factor}'. To 
learn to be a builder of steam-vessels, it is necessary, 
even when you begin with capital, to pass through the 
manual trades, and you will only learn them the better if 
the wages are necessary to your existence. Poverty in 
these cases only makes an intelligent man ground him- 
self all the better in that stern practical training which is 
the basis of his future career. Well, therefore, may those 
who have reached distinguished success in fields of 
practical activity extol the teachings of adversity. If it 
is a necessary part of your education that you should 
hammer rivets inside a steam-boiler, it is as well that 
your early habits should not be over-dainty. So it is 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



177 



observed that horny hands, in the colonies, get gold into 
them sooner than white ones. 

Even in the liberal professions young men get on all 
the better for not being too comfortably off. If you 
have a comfortable private income to begin with, the 
meagre early rewards of professional life will seem too 
paltry to be worth hard striving, and so you will very 
likely miss the more ample rewards of maturity, since 
the common road to success is nothing but a gradual 
increase. And you miss education at the same time, 
for practice is the best of professional educators, and 
many successful lawyers and artists have had scarcely any 
other training. The daily habit of affairs trains men for 
the active business of the world, and if the purpose of 
their lives is merely to do what they are doing or to 
command others to do the same things, the more closely 
circumstances tie them down to their work, the better. 

But in the higher intellectual pursuits the necessity for 
immediate earning has an entirely different result. It 
comes, not as an educator, but as an interruption or 
suspension of education. All intellectual lives, however 
much they may differ in the variety of their purposes, 
have at least this purpose in common, that they are 
mainly devoted to self-education of one kind or another. 
An intellectual man who is forty years old is as much at 
school as an Etonian of fourteen, and if you set him to 
earn more money than that which comes to him with- 
out especial care about it, you interrupt his schooling, 
exactly as selfish parents used to do when they sent their 
young children to the factory and prevented them from 
learning to read. The idea of the intellectual life is an 
existence passed almost entirely in study, yet preserving 
the results of its investigations. A day's writing will 

N 



PART V. 

LETTER 



Good effects 

°f 

immediate 
necessity. 



Bad effects 
of it in other 
circum- 
stances. 



178 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 



Pernicio7is 
effects of 
necessity. 



usually suffice to record the outcome of a month's 
research. 

Necessity, instead of advancing your studies, stops 
them. Whenever her harsh voice speaks it becomes 
your duty to shut your books, put aside your instru- 
ments, and do something that will fetch a price in the 
market. The man of science has to abandon the 
pursuit of a discovery to go and deliver a popular 
lecture a hundred miles off, for which he gets five pounds 
and his railway fare. The student of ancient literature 
has to read some feeble novel, and give three days of a 
valuable life to write an anonymous review which will 
bring him two pounds ten. The artist has to leave his 
serious picture to manufacture " pot-boilers," which will 
teach him nothing, but only spoil his hands and vitiate 
the public taste. The poet suspends his poem (which is 
promised to a publisher for Christmas, and will be 
spoiled in consequence by hurry at the last) in order to 
write newspaper articles on subjects of which he has 
little knowledge and in which he takes no interest. And 
yet these are instances of those comparatively happy 
and fortunate needy who are only compelled to suspend 
their intellectual life, and who can cheer themselves in 
their enforced labour with the hope of shortly renewing it. 
What of these others who are pushed out of their path 
for ever by the buffets of unkindly fortune ? Many a fine 
intellect has been driven into the deep quagmire, and has 
struggled in it vainly till death came, which but for that 
grim necessity might have scaled the immortal mountains. 

This metaphor of the mountains has led me, by a 
natural association of ideas, to think of a writer who has 
added to our enjoyment of their beauty, and I think of 
him the more readily that his career will serve as an 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



179 



illustration — far better than any imaginary career— of 
the very subject which just how occupies my mind. 
Mr. Ruskin is not only one of the best instances, but 
he is positively the very best instance except the two 
Humboldts, of an intellectual career which has been 
greatly aided by material prosperity, and which would 
not have been possible without it. This does not in the 
least detract from the merit of the author of " Modern 
Painters," for it needed a rare force of resolution, or a 
powerful instinct of genius, to lead the life of a severe 
student under every temptation to indolence. Still it is 
true that Mr. Ruskin's career would have been impos- 
sible for a poor man, however gifted. A poor man would 
not have had access to Mr. Ruskin's materials, and one 
of his chief superiorities has always been an abundant 
wealth of material. And if we go so far as to suppose 
that the poor man might have found other materials 
perhaps equivalent to these, we know that he could not 
have turned them to that noble use. The poor critic 
would be immediately absorbed in the ocean of anony- 
mous periodical literature ; he could not find time for 
the incubation of great works. " Modern Painters," the 
result of seventeen years of study, is not simply a work 
of genius, but of genius seconded by wealth. Close to 
it on my shelves stand four volumes which are the 
monument of another intellectual life devoted to the 
investigation of nature. De Saussure. whom Mr. Ruskin 
reverences as one of his ablest teachers, and whom all 
sincere students of nature regard as a model observer, 
pursued for many laborious years a kind of life which 
was not, and could not be, self-supporting in the pecu- 
niary sense. Many other patient labourers, who have 
not the celebrity of these, work steadily in the same way, 

N 2 



part v. 

LETTER 



Advantages 

qfiveallh in 

the case of 

Mr. Ruskin. 



Also in 

that of 

DeSaussure 



i So 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
II. 



Work 

spoiled in 

the 

exectitioii by 

fieciuiiary 

necessity. 



and are enabled to do so by the possession of inde- 
pendent fortune. I knofv one such who gives a whole 
summer to the examination of three or four acres of 
mountain-ground, the tangible result being comprised in 
a few memoranda, which, considered as literary material, 
might (in the hands of a skilled professional writer) just 
possibly be worth five pounds. 

Not only do narrow pecuniary means often render high 
intellectual enterprises absolutely impossible, but they do 
what is frequently even more trying to the health and 
character, they permit you to undertake work that would 
be worthy of you if you might only have time and ma- 
terials for the execution of it, and then spoil it in the 
doing. An intellectual labourer will bear anything ex- 
cept that. You may take away the very table he is writing 
upon, if you let him have a deal board for his books and 
papers ; you may take away all his fine editions, if you 
leave him common copies that are legible ; you may 
remove his very candlestick, if you leave him a bottle- 
neck to stick his candle in, and he will go on working 
cheerfully still. But the moment you do anything to 
spoil the quality of the work itself, you make him irri- 
table and miserable. "You think," says Sir Arthur 
Helps, " to gain a good man to manage your affairs 
because he happens to have a small share in your unaer- 
taking. It is a great error. You want him to do some- 
thing well which you are going to tell him to do. If he 
has been wisely chosen, and is an able man, his pecuniary 
interest in the matter will be mere dust in the balance, 
when compared with the desire which belongs to all such 
men to do their work well." Yes, this is the central 
passion of all men of true ability, to do tJieir work well , 
their happiness lies in that, and not in the amount of 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



181 



their profits, or even in their reputation. But then, on 
the other hand, they suffer indescribable mental misery 
when circumstances compel them to do their work less 
well than they know that, under more favourable circum- 
stances, they would be capable of doing it. The want 
of money is, in the higher intellectual pursuits, the most 
common hindrance to thoroughness and excellence of 
work. De Senancour, who, in consequence of a strange 
concatenation of misfortunes, was all his life struggling 
in shallows, suffered not from the privations themselves, 
but from the vague feeling that they stunted his intellec- 
tual growth j and any experienced student of human 
nature must be aware that De Senancour was right 
With larger means he would have seen more of the 
world, and known it better, and written of it with riper 
wisdom. He said that the man "who only saw in 
poverty the direct effect of the money-privation, and 
only compared, for instance, an eight-penny dinner to 
one that cost ten shillings, would have no conception of 
the true nature, of misfortune, for not to spend money 
is the least of the evils of poverty." Bossuet said that 
he " had no attachment to riches, and still if he had 
only what is barely necessary, if he felt himself narrowed, 
he would lose more than half his talents." Sainte-Beuve 
said, " Only think a little what a difference there is in 
the starting-point and in the employment of the faculties 
between a Due de Luynes and a Senancour." How 
many of :he most distinguished authors have been 
dependent upon private means, not simply for physical 
sustenance, but for the opportunities which they afforded 
of gaining that experience of life which was absolutely 
essential to the full growth of their mental faculties. 
Shelley's writings brought him no profit whatevei. and 



part v. 

LETTER 



Bad effects 
of poverty. 
in t/ie case 

of De 
Senancour. 



1 82 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
II. 



Words- 
worth. 



Scott. 



Kepler. 



His 

struggles for 

bread. 



Tycho 
Brake. 



Schi 7! er and 
Goethe. 



without a private income he could not ha\;e produced 
them, for he had ^ot a hundred buyers. Yet his whole 
time was employed in study or in travel, which for him 
was study of another kind, or else in the actual labour of 
composition. Wordsworth tried to become a London 
journalist and failed. A young man called Raisley 
Calvert died and left him 900/.; this saved the poet in 
Wordsworth, as it kept him till the, publication of the 
" Lyrical Ballads," and afterwards other pieces of good 
luck happened to him, so that he could think and com- 
pose at leisure. Scott would not venture to devote 
himself to literature until he had first secured a com- 
fortable income outside of it. Poor Kepler struggled 
with constant anxieties, and told fortunes by astrology 
for a livelihood, saying that astrology as the daughter of 
astronomy ought to keep her mother ; but fancy a man 
of science wasting precious time over horoscopes ! " 1 
supplicate you," he writes to Mcestlin, "if there is a 
situation vacant at Tubingen, do what you can to obtain 
it for me, and let me know the prices of bread and wine 
and other necessaries of life, for my wife is not accus- 
tomed to live on beans." He had to accept all sorts of 
jobs ; he made almanacks, and served anyone who would 
pay him. His only tranquil time for study was when he 
lived in Styria. on his wife's income, a tranquillity that 
did not last for long, and never returned. How different 
is this from the princely ease of Tycho Brahe, who 
laboured for science alone, with all the help that the 
ingenuity of his age could furnish ! There is the same 
contrast, in a later generation, between Schiller and 
Goethe. Poor Schiller " wasting so much of his precious 
life in literary hack-work, translating French books foi 
a miserable pittance;" Goethe, fortunate in his pecuniary 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



i»3 



independence as in all the other great circumstances of 
his life, and this at a time when the pay of authors was 
so miserable that they could hardly exist by the pen. 
Schiller got a shilling a page for his translations. Merck 
the publisher offered three pounds sterling for a drama 
of Goethe. " If Europe praised me," Goethe said, 
" what has Europe done for me ? Nothing. Even my 
works have been an expense to me." 

The pecuniary rewards which men receive for their 
labour are so absurdly (yet inevitably) disproportionate 
to the intellectual power that is needed for the task, and 
also to the toil involved, that no one can safely rely 
upon the higher intellectual pursuits as a protection from 
money-anxieties. I will give you two instances of this 
disproportion, real instances, of men who are known to 
me personally. One of them is an eminent Englishman 
of most remarkable intellectual force, who for many years 
past has occupied his leisure in the composition of works 
that are valued by the thinking public to a degree which 
it would be difficult to exaggerate. But this thinking 
public is not numerous, and so in the year 1866 this 
eminent philosopher, " unable to continue losing money 
in endeavouring to enlighten his contemporaries, was com- 
pelled to announce the termination of his series." On 
the other hand, a Frenchman, also known to me per- 
sonally, one day conceived the fortunate idea that a new 
primer might possibly be a saleable commodity. So he 
composed a little primer, beginning with the alphabet, 
advancing to a, b, ab; b, a, ba; and even going so far in 
history as to affirm that Adam was the first man and 
A raham the father of the faithful. He had the wisdom 
o keep the copyright of this little publication, which em- 
ployed (in the easiest of all imaginable literary labour) 



part v. 

LETTER 
II. 

Goethe. 



An 

eminent 
English 
philosopher. 



An 

ingenious 

Frenchman. 



1 84 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
II. 

A 

successful 
author. 



Loss of 
time in 
money- 
getting. 



Professional 
authorship. 



the evenings of a single week. It has brought him in, 
ever since, a regular income of 120/. a year, which, so far 
from showing any signs of diminution, is positively im- 
proving. This success encouraged the same intelligent 
gentleman to compose more literature of the same order, 
and he is now the enviable owner of several other 
such copyrights, all of them very valuable ; in fact as 
good properties as .house-leases in London. Here is 
an author who, from the pecuniary point of view, was 
incomparably more successful than Milton, or Shelley, 
or Goethe. If every intellectual man could shield his 
higher life by writing primers for children which should 
be as good as house-leases, if the proverb Qui pent k plus 
pent le moins were a true proverb, which it is not, then of 
course all men of culture would be perfectly safe, since 
they all certainly know the contents of a primer. But 
you may be able to write the most learned philosophical 
treatise and still not be able to earn your daily bread. 

Consider, too, the lamentable loss of time which 
people of high culture incur in making experiments on 
public taste, when money becomes one of their main 
objects. Whilst they are writing stories for children, or 
elementary educational books which people of far inferior 
attainment could probably do much better, their own self- 
improvement comes to a stand-still. If it could only be 
ascertained without delay what sort of work would bring 
in the money they require, then there would be some 
chance of apportioning time so as to make reserves for 
self improvement; but when they have to write a score 
of volumes merely to ascertain the humour of the public, 
there is little chance of leisure. The life of the profes- 
sional author who has no reputation is much less favour- 
able to high culture than the life of a tradesman in 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



185 



moderately easy circumstances who can reserve an hour 
or two every day for some beloved intellectual pursuit. 

Sainte-Beuve tells us that during certain years of his 
life he had endeavoured, and had been able, so to arrange 
his existence that it should have both sweetness and 
dignity, writing from time to time what was agreeable, 
reading what was both agreeable and serious, cultivating 
friendships, throwing much of his mind into the intimate 
relations of every day, giving more to his friends than to 
the public, reserving what was most tender and delicate 
for the inner life, enjoying with moderation; such for him 
was the dream of an intellectual existence in which things 
truly precious were valued according to their worth. And 
" above all" he said, above all his desire was not to write 
too much, " surtout tie pas trop ecrire." And then comes 
the regret for this wise, well-ordered life enjoyed by him 
only for a time. " La necessite depuis m'a saisi et m'a 
con train t de renoncer a ce que je conside'rais comme le 
seul bonheur ou la consolation exquise du melancolique 
et du sage." 

Auguste Comte lamented in like manner the evil intel- 
lectual consequences of anxieties about material needs. 
" There is nothing," he said, " more mortal to my mind 
than the necessity, pushed to a certain degree, to have 
to think each day about a provision for the next. 
Happily I think little and rarely about all that; but 
whenever this happens to me I pass through moments 
of discouragement and positive despair, which if the 
influence of them became habitual would make me re- 
nounce all my labours, all my philosophical projects, to 
end my days like ati ass" 

There are a hundred rules for getting rich, *but the 
instinct of accumulation is worth all such rules put 



part v. 

LETTIIR 



Sainte- 

Bert7'e's 

ideal life. 



A iiguste 
Comte- 



1 86 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
III. 

Mere 
hoarders. 



Rich and 
/oor^ 



Money 

protects the 

intellectual 

life. 



together. This instinct is rarely found in combination 
with high intellectual gifts, and the reason is evident. 
To advance from a hundred pounds to a thousand is 
not an intellectual advance, and there is no intellectual 
interest in the addition of a cipher at the bankers'. 
Simply to accumulate money that you are never to use 
is, from the intellectual point of view, as stupid an 
operation as can be imagined. We observe, too, that 
the great accumulators, the men who are gifted by nature 
with the true instinct, are not usually such persons as we 
feel any ambition to become. Their faculties are con- 
centrated on one point, and that point, as it seems to 
us, of infinitely little importance. We cannot see that it 
signifies much to the intellectual well-being of humanity 
that John Smith should be worth his million when he dies, 
since we know quite well that John Smith's mind will be 
just as ill-furnished then as it is now. In places where 
much money is made we easily acquire a positive disgust 
for it, and the curate seems the most distinguished gentle- 
man in the community, with his old black coat and his 
seventy pounds a year. W T e come to hate money-matters 
when we find that they exclude all thoughtful and disin- 
terested conversation, and we fly to the society of people 
with fixed incomes, not large enough for much saving, 
to escape the perpetual talk about investments. Our 
happiest hours have been spent with poor scholars, and 
artists, and men of science, whose words remain in the 
memory and make us rich indeed. Then we dislike 
money because it rules and restrains us, and because it 
is unintelligent and seems hostile, so far as that which is 
unintelligent can be hostile. And yet the real truth is 
that money is the strong protector of the intellectual life. 
The student sits and studies, too often despising the 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



187 



power that shelters him from the wintry night, that gives 
him roof and walls, and lamp, and books, and fire. For 
money is simply the accumulated labour of the past, 
guarding our peace as fleets and armies guard the in- 
dustry of England, or like some mighty fortress-wall 
within which men follow the most peaceful avocations. 
The art is to use money so that it shall be the protector 
and not the scatterer of our time, the body-guard of the 
sovereign Intellect and Will 



LETTER III. 

TO A STUDENT IN GREAT POVERTY. 

Poverty really a great obstacle — Difference between a thousand rich 
men and a thousand poor men taken from persons of average 
natural gifts — The Houses of Parliament — The English recognize 
the natural connection between wealth and culture — Connection 
between ignorance and parsimony in expenditure — What may 
be honestly said for the encouragement of a very poor student. 

As it seems to me that to make light of the difficulties 
which lie in the path of another is not to show true 
sympathy for him, even though it is done sometimes out 
of a sort of awkward kindness and for his encourage- 
ment, I will not begin by pretending that poverty is not 
a great obstacle to the perfection of the intellectual life. 
It is a great obstacle; it is one of the very greatest of all 
obstacles. Only observe how riches and poverty operate 
upon mankind in the mass. Here and there no doubt 
a very poor man attainj intellectual distinction when he 
has exceptional strength of will, and health enough to 
bear a great strain of extra labour that he imposes upon 
himself, and natural gifts so brilliant that he can learn in 



part v. 

LETTER 
It. 



LETTER 
III. 



Poverty a 
great 
obstacle. 



i88 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
III. 



Two 

tssemblies of 

rich men 



lVa?it of 
experience 
in poverty 



an hour what common men learn in a day. But consider 
mankind in the mass. Look, for instance, at our two 
Houses of Parliament. They are composed of men taken 
from the average run of Englishmen with very little 
reference to ability, but almost all of them are rich men ; 
not one of them is poor, as you are poor ; not one of 
them has to contend against the stern realities of poverty. 
Then consider the very high general level of intellectual 
attainment which distinguishes those two assemblies, and 
ask yourself candidly whether a thousand men taken 
from the beggars in the streets, or even from the far 
superior class of our manufacturing operatives, would be 
likely to understand, as the two Houses of Parliament 
understand, the many complicated questions of legisla- 
tion and of policy which are continually brought before 
them. We all know that the poor are too limited in 
knowledge and experience, from the want of the neces- 
sary opportunities, and too little accustomed to exercise 
their minds in the tranquil investigations of great ques- 
tions, Xo be competent for the work of Parliament. It is 
scarcely necessary to insist upon this fact to an English- 
man, because the English have always recognized the 
natural connection between wealth and culture, and have 
preferred to be governed by the rich from the belief that 
they are likely to be better informed, and better situated 
for intellectual activity of a disinterested kind, than those 
members of the community whose time and thoughts are 
almost entirely occupied in winning their daily bread by 
the incessant labour of their hands. And if you go out 
into the world, if you mix with men of very different 
classes, you will find that in a broad average way (I am 
not speaking just now of the exceptions) the richer 
classes are much more capable of entering into the sort 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY. 



189 



of thinking which may be called intellectual than those 
whose money is less plentiful, and whose opportunities 
have therefore been less abundant. Indeed it may be 
asserted, roughly and generally, that the narrowness of 
men's ideas is in direct proportion to their parsimony in 
expenditure. I do not mean to affirm that all who spend 
largely attain large intellectual results, for of course we 
know that a man may spend vast sums on pursuits which 
do not educate him in anything worth knowing, but the 
advantage is that with habits of free expenditure the 
germs of thought are well tilled and watered, whereas 
parsimony denies them every external help. The most 
spending class in Europe is the English gentry, it is also 
the class most strikingly characterized by a high general 
average of information ; J the most parsimonious class in 
Europe is the French peasantry it is also the class most 
strikingly characterized by ignorance and intellectual 
apathy. The English gentleman has cultivated himself 
by various reading and extensive travel, but the French 
peasant will not go anywhere except to the market-town, 
and could not pardon the extravagance of buying a book, 
or a candle to read it by in the evening. Between these 
extremes we have various grades of the middle classes in 
which culture usually increases very much in proportion 
to the expenditure. The rule is not without its excep- 
tions ; there are rich vulgar people who spend a great 
deal without improving themselves at all — who only, by 
unlimited self-indulgence, succeed in making themselves 
so uncomfortably sensitive to every bodily inconvenience 

1 The reader will please to bear in mind thnt I am speaking here 
of broad effects on great numbers. I do not think that aristocracy, 
in its spirit, is quite favourable to the exceptionally highest intel- 
lectual life. 



PART V. 

•letter 

III. 



Expenditure 

and 
parsimony. 



English 

gentlemen 

and 

French 
peasants. 



190 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
III. 



Effects of 
ancient 
wealth. 



Possible 
culture of 
the poor. 



hat they have no leisure, even in the midst of an un- 
occupied life, to think of anything but their own bellies 
and their own skins — people whose power of attention is 
so feeble that the smallest external incident distracts it, 
and who remember nothing of their travels but a catalogue 
of trivial annoyances. But people of this kind do not 
generally belong to families on whom wealth has had 
time to produce its best effects. What I mean is, that a 
family which has been for generations in the habit of 
spending four thousand a year will usually be found to 
have a more cultivated tone than one that has only spent 
four hundred. 

I have come to the recognition of this truth very re- 
luctantly indeed, not because I dislike rich people, but 
merely because they are necessarily a very small minority, 
and I should like every human being to have the best 
benefits of culture if it were only possible. The plain 
living and high thinking that Wordsworth so much valued 
is a cheering ideal, for most men have to live plainly, 
and if they could only think with a certain elevation we 
might hope to solve the great problem of human life, the 
reconciliation of poverty *and the soul. There certainly 
is a slow movement in that direction, and the shortening 
of the hours of labour may afford some margin of leisure ; 
but we who work for culture every day, and all day long, 
and still feel that we know very little, and have hardly 
skill enough to make any effective use of the little that 
we know, can scarcely indulge in very enthusiastic anti- 
cipations of the future culture of the poor. 

Still, there are some things that may be rationally and 
truly said to a poor man who desires culture, and which 
are not without a sort of Spartan encouragement. You 
are restricted by your poverty, but it is not always a bad 



THE INFLUENCES OF MONK Y. 



191 



thing to be restricted, even from the intellectual point of 
of view. The intellectual powers of well-to-do people 
are very commonly made, ineffective by the enormous 
multiplicity of objects that are presented to their attention, 
and which claim from them a sort of polite notice like 
the greeting of a great lady to each of her thousand guests. 
It requires the very rarest strength of mind, in a rich man, 
to concentrate his attention on anything — there are so 
many things that he is expected to make a pretence of 
knowing ; but nobody expects you to know anything, and 
this is an incalculable advantage. I think that all poor 
men who have risen to subsequent distinction have been 
greatly indebted to this independence of public opinion 
as to what they ought to know. In trying to satisfy that 
public opinion by getting up a pretence of various sorts 
of knowledge, which is only a sham, we sacrifice not only 
much precious time, but we blunt our natural interest in 
things. That interest you preserve in all its virgin force, 
and this force carries a man far. Then, again, although 
the opportunities of rich people are very superior to yours, 
they are not altogether so superior as they .seem. There 
exists a great equalizing power, the limitation of human 
energy. A rich man may sit down to an enormous ban- 
quet, but he can only make a good use of the little that 
he is able to digest. So it is with the splendid intellectual 
banquet that is spread before the rich man's eyes. He 
can only possess what he has energy to master, and too 
frequently the manifest impossibility of mastering every- 
thing produces a feeling of discouragement that ends in 
his mastering nothing. A poor student, especially if he 
lives in an out-of-the-way place where there are no big 
libraries to bewilder him, may apply his energy with 
effect in the study of a few authors. 



part v. 

LETTKK. 



Effects of 

opinio7i on 

the rich. 



The floor 

more 

independent 

of opinion. 



Li in its of 
human 
energy. 



192 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART V. 

LETTER 
III. 



The rich 

t»a7i does 

not always 

get most 

benefit. 



I used to believe a great deal more in opportunities 
and less in application than I do now. Time and health 
are needed, but with these there are always opportunities. 
Rich people have a fancy for spending money very use- 
lessly on their culture because it seems to them more 
valuable when it has been costly ; but the truth is, that 
by the blessing of good and cheap literature, intellectual 
light has become almost as accessible as daylight. I have 
a rich friend who travels more, and buys more costly 
things, than I do, but he does not really learn more or 
advance farther in the twelvemonth. If my days are 
fully occupied, what has he to set against them ? only 
other well-occupied days, no more. If he is getting 
benefit at St. Petersburg he is missing the benefit I am 
getting round my house, and in it. The sum of the year's 
benefit seems to be surprisingly alike in both cases. So 
if you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, 
Baron Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as 
you — he is certainly not better occupied. When I open 
a noble volume I say to myself, " Now the only Crcesus 
that I envy is he who is reading a better book than this." 









PART VI. 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



LETTER I. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD FIRMLY RESOLVED NEVER 
TO WEAR ANYTHING BUT A GREY COAT. 1 

Secret enjoyment of rebellion against custom, and of the disabilities 
resulting from it — Penalties imposed by Society and by Nature 
out of proportion to the offence — Instances — What we consider 
penalties not really penalties, but only consequences — Society 
likes harmony, and is offended by dissonance — Utility of rebels 
against custom — That they ought to reserve their power of re- 
bellion for great occasions — Uses of custom — Duty of the intel- 
lectual class — Best way to procure the abolition of a custom we 
disapprove — Bad customs — Eccentricity sometimes a duty. 

When I had the pleasure of staying at your father's house, 
you told me, rather to my surprise, that it was impossible 
for you to go to balls and dinner-parties because you did 
not possess such a thing as a dress- coat. The reason 
struck me as being scarcely a valid one, considering the 
rather high scale of expenditure adopted in the paternal 
mansion. It seemed clear that the eldest son of a family 

1 The title of this letter seems so odd, that it may be necessary to 
inform the reader that it was addressed to a real person. 

O 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
I 



A dress 
coat. 



194 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



.PART VI 

LETTER 
I. 



Secret 
enjoyment 

°f. 

disobedience 

to 
custom. 



Penalties 

and conse- 

queiices. 



which lived after the liberal fashion of Yorkshire country 
gentlemen could afford himself a dress- coat if he liked. 
Then I wondered whether you disliked dress-coats from 
a belief that they were unbecoming to your person ; but 
a very little observation of your character quite satis- 
factorily convinced me that, whatever might be your 
weaknesses (for everybody has some weaknesses), anxiety 
about personal appearance was not one of them. 

The truth is, that you secretly enjoy this little piece of 
disobedience to custom, and all the disabilities which 
result from it. This little rebellion is connected with a 
larger rebellion, and it is agreeable to you to demonstrate 
the unreasonableness of society by incurring a very severe 
penalty for a very trifling offence. You are always dressed 
decently, you offend against no moral rule, you have cul- 
tivated your mind by study and reflection, and it rather 
pleases you to think that a young gentleman so well quali- 
fied for society in everything of real importance should 
be excluded from it because he has not purchased a per- 
mission from his tailor. 

The penalties imposed by society for the infraction of 
very trifling details of custom are often, as it seems, out 
of all proportion to the offence ; but so are the penalties 
of nature. Only three days before the date of this letter, 
an intimate friend of mine was coming home from a day's 
shooting. His nephew, a fine young man in the full 
enjoyment of existence, was walking ten paces in advance. 
A covey of partridges suddenly cross the road : my friend 
in shouldering his gun touches the trigger just a second 
too soon, and kills his nephew. Now, think of the long 
years of mental misery that will be the punishment of 
that very trifling piece of carelessness ! My poor friend 
has passed, in the space of a single instant, from a joyous 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



195 



life to a life that is permanently and irremediably saddened. 
It is as if he had left the summer sunshine to enter a 
gloomy dungeon and begin a perpetual imprisonment. 
And for what ? For having touched a trigger, without 
evil intention, a little too precipitately. It seems harder 
still for the victim, who is sent out of the world in the 
bloom of perfect manhood because his uncle was not 
quite so cool as he ought to have been. Again, not far 
from where I live, thirty-five men were killed last week 
in a coal-pit from an explosion of fire-damp. One of their 
number had struck a lucifer to light his pipe : for doino- 
this in a place where he ought not to have done it, the 
man suffers the penalty of death, and thirty-four others 
with him. The fact is simply that Nature will be obeyed, 
and makes no attempt to proportion punishments to 
offences: indeed, what in our human way we call punish- 
ments are not punishments, but simple consequences. So 
it is with the great social penalties. Society will be obeyed: 
if you refuse obedience, you must take the consequences. 
Society has only one law, and that is custom. Even 
religion itself is socially powerful only just so far as it 
has custom on its side. 

Nature does not desire that thirty-five men should be 
destroyed because one could not resist the temptation of 
a pipe; but fire-damp is highly inflammable, and the explo- 
sion is a simple consequence. Society does not desire 
to exclude you because you will not wear evening dress ; 
but the dress is customary, and your exclusion is merely 
a consequence, of your nonconformity. The view of 
society goes no farther in this than the artistic con- 
ception (not very delicately artistic, perhaps) that it is 
prettier to see men in black coats regularly placed between 
ladies round a dinner-table than men in grey coats or 

o 2 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Nature 
will be 
obeyed. 



Society 
will be 
obeyed. 



Society's 
. artistic 
:oncept ious. 



196 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
I. 

Society will 
have peace. 



Rebels 
against 
custom ■ 



brown coats. The uniformity of costume appears to 
represent uniformity of sentiment and to ensure a sort of 
harmony amongst the convives. What society really cares 
for is harmony ; what it dislikes is dissent and noncon- 
formity. It wants peace in the dining-room, peace in 
the drawing-room, peace everywhere in its realm of 
tranquil pleasure. You come in your shooting-coat, 
which was in tune upon the moors, but is a dissonance 
amongst ladies in full dress. Do you not perceive that 
fustian and velveteen, which were natural amongst game- 
keepers, are not so natural on gilded chairs covered with 
silk, with lace and diamonds at a distance of three feet ? 
You don't perceive it ? Very well : society does not 
argue the point with you, but only excludes you. 

It has been said that in the life of every intellectual 
man there comes a time when he questions custom at all 
points. This seems to be a provision of nature for the 
reform and progress of custom itself, which without such 
questioning would remain absolutely stationary and irre- 
sistibly despotic. You rebels against the established 
custom have your place in the great work of progressive 
civilization. Without you, Western Europe would have 
been a second China. It is to the continual rebellion of 
such persons as yourself that we owe whatever progress 
has been accomplished since the times of our remotest 
forefathers. There have been rebels always, and the 
rebels have not been, generally speaking, the most stupid 
part of the nation. 

But what is the use of wasting this beneficial power of 
rebellion on matters too tpivial to be worth attention ? 
Does it hurt your conscience to appear in a dress-coat ? 
Certainly not, and you would be as good-looking in it 
as you are in your velveteen shooting-jacket with the 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



197 



pointers on the bronze buttons. Let us conform in these 
trivial matters, which nobody except a tailor ought to con- 
sider worth a moment's attention, in order to reserve our 
strength for the protection of intellectual liberty. Let 
society arrange your dress for you (it will save you infi- 
nite trouble), but never permit it to stifle the expression of 
your thought. You find it convenient, because you are 
timid, to exclude yourself from the world by refusing to 
wear its costume ; but a bolder man would let the tailor 
do his worst, and then go into the world and courageously 
defend there the persons and causes that are misunder- 
stood and slanderously misrepresented. The fables of 
Spenser are fables only in form, and a noble knight may 
at any time go forth, armed in the panoply of a tail-coat, 
a dress waistcoat, and a manly moral courage, to do 
battle across the dinner-table and in the drawing-room 
for those who have none to defend them. 

It is unphilosophical to set ourselves obstinately against 
custom in the mass, for it multiplies the power of men by 
settling useless discussion and clearing the ground for 
our best and most prolific activity. The business of the 
world could not be carried forward one day without a 
most complex code of customs ; and law itself is little 
more than custom slightly improved upon by men 
reflecting together at their leisure, and reduced to codes 
and systems. We ought to think of custom as a most 
precious legacy of the past, saving us infinite per- 
plexity, yet not as an infallible rule. The most intelligent 
community would be conservative in its habits, yet not 
obstinately conservative, but willing to hear and adopt 
the suggestions of advancing reason. The great duty of 
the intellectual class, and its especial function, is to con- 
firm what is reasonable in the customs that have been 



part v 

LETTER 
I 

Confu7'mHy 
in trifles. 



True 
courage. 



Utility 

of 

custom. 



198 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI 

LETTER 



The art 

of . 

weakening 

customs. 



Open 
resistance. 



handed down to us, and so maintain their authority, yet 
at the same time to show that custom is not final, bat 
merely a form suited to the world's convenience. And 
whenever you are convinced that a custom is no longer 
serviceable, the way to procure the abolition of it is to 
lead men very gradually away from it, by offering a sub- 
stitute at first very slightly different from what they have 
been long used to. If the English had been in the habit 
of tattooing, the best way to procure its abolition would 
have been to admit that it was quite necessary to cover the 
face with elaborate patterns, yet gently to suggest that these 
patterns would be still more elegant if delicately painted in 
water-colours. Then you might have gone on arguing — still 
admitting, of course, the absolute necessity for ornament 
of some kind — that good taste demanded only a moderate 
amount of it ; and so you would have brought people 
gradually to a little flourish on the nose or forehead, when 
the most advanced reformers might have set the example 
of dispensing with ornament altogether. Many of our 
contemporaries have abandoned shaving in this gradual 
way, allowing the whiskers to encroach imperceptibly, till 
at last the razor lay in the dressing-case unused. The 
abominable black cylinders that covered our heads a few 
years ago were vamly resisted by radicals in costume, but 
the moderate reformers gradually reduced their elevation, 
and now they are things of the past. 

Though I think we ought to submit to custom in 
matters of indifference, and to reform it gradually, whilst 
affecting submission in matters not altogether indifferent, 
still there are other matters on which the only attitude 
worthy of a man is the most bold and open resistance to 
its dictates. Custom may have a right to authority ovei 
your wardrobe, but it cannot have any right to ruin your 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



199 



self-respect Not only the virtues most advantageous to 
well-being, but also the most contemptible and degrading 
vices, have at various periods of the world's history been 
sustained by the full authority of custom. There are 
places where forty years ago drunkenness was conformity 
to custom, and sobriety an eccentricity. There are socie- 
ties, even at the present day, where licentiousness is the 
rule of custom, and chastity the sign of weakness or want 
of spirit. There are communities (it cannot be necessary 
to name them) in which successful fraud, especially on a 
large scale, is respected as the proof of smartness, whilst 
a man who remains poor because he is honest is despised 
for slowness and incapacity. There are whole nations 
in which religious hypocrisy is strongly approved by cus- 
tom, and honesty severely condemned. The Wahabee 
Arabs may be mentioned as an instance of this, but the 
Wahabee Arabs are not the only people, nor is Nejed the 
only place, where it is held to be more virtuous to lie on 
the side of custom than to be an honourable man in 
independence of it. In all communities where vice and 
hypocrisy are sustained by the authority of custom, 
eccentricity is a moral duty. .In all communities where 
a low standard of thinking is received as infallible com- 
mon sense, eccentricity becomes an intellectual duty. 
There are hundreds of places in the provinces where it is 
impossible for any man to lead the intellectual life with- 
out being condemned as an eccentric. It is the duty of 
intellectual men who are thus isolated to set the example 
of that which their neighbours call eccentricity, but which 

may be more accurately described as superiority. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
I. 

Bad 
customs. 



Eccentricity 

sometimes 

a duty. 



200 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

1BTTER 
II. 



The 
Japanese. 



Leaving the 

ages of 

tradition. 



LETTER II. 

TO A CONSERVATIVE WHO HAD ACCUSED THE AUTHOR OF A 
WANT OF RESPECT FOR TRADITION. 

Transition from the ages of tradition to that of experiment — At- 
traction of the future — Joubert— Saint-Marc Girardin — Solved 
and unsolved problems — The introduction of a new element — ■ 
Inapplicability of past experience — An argument against Re 
publics — The lessons of history — Mistaken predictions that have 
been based on them — Morality and ecclesiastical authority — 
Compatibility of hopes for the future with gratitude to the past 
— That we are more respectful to the past than previous ages 
have been — Our feelings towards tradition — An incident at War- 
saw — The reconstruction of the navy. 

The astonishing revolution in thought and practice 
which is taking place amongst the intelligent Japanese, 
the throwing away of a traditional system of living in 
order to establish in its stead a system which, for an 
Asiatic people, is nothing more than a vast experiment, 
has its counterpart in many an individual life in Europe. 
We are like travellers crossing an isthmus between two 
seas, who have left one ship behind them, who have not 
yet seen the vessel that waits on the distant shore, and 
who experience to the full all the discomforts and incon- 
veniences of the passage from one sea to the other. 
There is a break between the existence of our fore- 
fathers and that of our posterity, and it is we who have 
the misfortune to be situated exactly where the break 
occurs. We are leaving behind us the security, I do 
not say the safety, but the feeling of tranquillity which 
belonged to the ages of tradition ; we are entering upon 
ages whose spirit we foresee but dimly, whose institu* 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



20I 



tions are the subject of guesses and conjectures. And 
yet this future, of which we know so little, attracts us 
more by the very vastness of its enigma than the rich 
history of the past, so full of various incident, of power- 
ful personages, of grandeur, and suffering, and sorrow. 
Joubert already noticed this forward-looking of the 
modern mind. " The ancients," he observed, " said, 
1 Our ancestors ; ' we say, ' Posterity.' We do not love as 
they did la patrie, the country and laws of our fore- 
fathers ; we love rather the laws and the country of our 
children. It is the magic of the future, and not that of 
the past, which seduces us." Commenting on this thought 
of Joubert's, Saint-Marc Girardin said that we loved the 
future because we loved ourselves, and fashioned the 
future in our own image ; and he added, with partial but 
not complete injustice, that our ignorance of the past 
was a cause of this tendency in our minds, since it is 
shorter to despise the past than to study it. These 
critics and accusers of the modern spirit are not, how- 
ever, altogether fair to it. If the modern spirit looks so 
much to the future, it is because the problems of the 
past are solved problems, whilst those of the future have 
the interest of a game that is only just begun. We know 
what became of feudalism, we know the work that it 
accomplished and the services that it rendered, but we 
do not yet know what will be the effects of modern 
democracy and of the scientific and industrial spirit. 
It is the novelty of this element, the scientific spirit and 
the industrial development which is a part (but only a 
part) of its results, that makes the past so much less 
reliable as a guide than it would have been if no new 
element had intervened, and therefore so much less 
interesting for us. A.s an example of the inapplicability 



PART VI. 

LETTER 



A ncestors 

mid 
Posterity. 



The modern 

spirit looks 

to the 

/iclnre- 



202 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
II. 



The lessens 
of history. 



Deceptions 

of the 

historical 

party. 



of past experience, I may mention an argument against 
Republics which has been much used of late by the 
partisans of Monarchy in France. They have frequently 
told us that Republics had only succeeded in very small 
States, and this is true of ancient democracies ; but it is 
not less true that railways, and telegraphs, and the news- 
paper press have made great countries like France and 
the United States just as capable of feeling and acting 
simultaneously as the smallest Republics of antiquity. 
The parties which rely on what are called the lessons of 
history are continually exposed to great deceptions. In 
France, what may be called the historical party would 
not believe in the possibility of a united Germany, 
because fifty years ago, with the imperfect means of 
communication which then existed, Germany was not 
and could not be united. The same historical party 
refused to believe that the Italian kingdom could ever 
hold together. In England, the historical party pre- 
dicted the dismemberment of the United States, and 
in some other countries it has been a favourite article 
of faith that England could not keep her possessions. 
But theories of this kind are always of very doubtful 
applicability to the present, and their applicability to the 
future is even more doubtful still. Steam and electricity 
have made great modern States practically like so many 
great cities, so that Manchester is like a suburb of 
London, and Havre the Piraeus of Paris, whilst the most 
trifling occasions bring the Sovereign of Italy to any of 
the Italian capitals. 

In the intellectual sphere the experience of the past is 
at least equally unreliable. If the power of the Catholic 
Church had been suddenly removed from the Europe 
of the fourteenth century, the consequence would have 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



203 



been a moral anarchy difficult to conceive ; but in our 
own day the real regulator of morality is not the Church, 
but public opinion, in the formation of which the Church 
has a share, but only a share. It would therefore be 
unsafe to conclude that the weakening of ecclesiastical 
authority must of necessity, in the future, be followed by 
moral anarchy, since it is possible, and even probable, 
that the other great influences upon public opinion may 
gain strength as this declines. And in point of fact we 
have already lived long enough to witness a remarkable 
decline of ecclesiastical authority, which is proved by the 
avowed independence of scientific writers and thinkers, 
and by the open opposition of almost all the European 
Governments. The secular power resists the ecclesiastical 
in Germany and Spain. In France it establishes a form 
of government which the Church detests. In Ireland it 
disestablishes and. disendows a hierarchy. In Switzerland 
it resists the whole power of the Papacy. In Italy it seizes 
the sacred territory and plants itself within the very walls 
of Rome. And yet the time which has witnessed this 
unprecedented self-assertion of the laity has witnessed a 
positive increase in the morality of public sentiment, 
especially in the love of justice and the willingness to 
hear truth, even when truth is not altogether agreeable to 
the listener, and in the respect paid by opponents to able 
and sincere men, merely for their ability and sincerity. 
This love of justice, this patient and tolerant hearing of 
new truth, in which our age immeasurably exceeds 
all the ages that have preceded it, are the direct results 
of the scientific spirit, and are not only in themselves 
eminently moral, but conducive to moral health generally. 
And this advancement may be observed in countries 
which were least supposed to be capable of it. Even the 



PART VI. 

LETTEU 



Mora 1 

anarchy and 

ecclesL ' istical 

authority. 



Resistance 

0/ tie 

se:ular 

power. 



Increase of 
mora r ity in 
p iblic senti- 
ment. 



2(>4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI 

LETTER 



Public 

opinion in 

France- 



The present 
a*e not ex- 
c fttioiinlly 

scornful 
of the past. 



French, of whose immorality we have heard so much, 
have a public opinion which is gradually gaining a salu- 
tary strength, an increasing dislike for barbarity and 
injustice, and a more earnest desire that no citizen, 
except by his own fault, should be excluded from the 
benefits of civilization. The throne which has lately 
fallen was undermined by the currents of this public 
opinion before it sank in military disaster. " Aussi me 
contenterai-je," says Littre, " d'appeler Tattention sur la 
guerre, dont l'opinion publique ne tolere plus les antiques 
barbaries ; sur la magistrature, qui repudie avec horreur 
les tortures et la question ; sur la tolerance, qui a banni 
les persecutions religieuses ; sur l'equite, qui soumet tout 
le monde aux charges communes ; sur le sentiment de 
solidarite qui du sort des classes pauvres fait le plus pres- 
sant et le plus noble probleme du temps present. Pour 
moi, je ne sais caracteriser ce spectacle si hautement 
moral qu'en disant que l'humanite, amelioree, accepte de 
plus en plus le devoir et la tache d'etendre le domaine de 
la justice et de la bonteV' 

Yet this partial and comparative satisfaction that we 
find in the present, and our larger hopes for the future, 
are quite compatible with gratitude to all who in the past 
have rendered such improvement possible for us, and the 
higher improvement that we hope for possible to those 
who will come after us. I cannot think that the present 
age may be accused with justice of exceptional igno- 
rance or scorn of its predecessors. We have been told 
that we scorn our forefathers because old buildings are 
removed to suit modern convenience, because the walls 
of old York have been pierced for the railway, and a 
tower of Conway Castle has been undermined that the 
Holyhead mail may pass. But the truth is, that whilst 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



205 



we care a little for our predecessors, they cared still less 
for theirs. The mediaeval builders not only used as 
quarries any Roman remains that happened to come in 
their way, but they spoiled the work of their own fathers 
and grandfathers by intruding their new fashions on 
buildings originally designed in a different style of art. 
When an architect in the present day has to restore 
some venerable church, he endeavours to do so in har- 
mony with the design of the first builder ; but such 
humility as this was utterly foreign to the mediaeval 
mind, which often destroyed the most lovely and neces- 
sary details to replace them with erections in the fashion 
of the day, but artistically unsuitable. The same dis- 
dain for the labours of other ages has prevailed until 
within the memory of living men, and our age is really 
the first that has made any attempt to conform itself, in 
these things, to the intentions of the dead. I may also 
observe, that although history is less relied upon as a 
guide to the future than it was formerly, it is more care- 
fully and thoroughly investigated from an intellectual 
interest in itself. 

To conclude. It seems to me that tradition has 
much less influence of an authoritative kind than it had 
formerly, and that the authority which it still possesses 
is everywhere steadily declining ; that as a guide to the 
future of the world it is more likely to mislead than to 
enlighten us, and still that all intellectual and educated 
people must always take a great interest in tradition, 
and have a certain sentiment of respect for it. Con- 
sider what our feelings are towards the Church of 
Rome, the living embodiment of tradition. No well- 
informed person can forget the immense services that 
in former ages she has rendered to European civiliza- 



part vi. 

LETTER 



Modern 
architecture. 



Decline of 

the flower of 

tradition- 



The Church 
of Rome. 



206 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIEE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
II. 



An incident 
at H arsaw. 



Reconstruc- 
tion of the 
British 
navy. 



tion, and yet at the same time such a person would 
scarcely wish to place modern thought under her direc- 
tion, nor would he consult the Pope about the ten- 
dencies of the modern world. When in 1829 the city of 
Warsaw erected a monument to Copernicus, a scientific 
society there waited in the Church of the Holy Cross for 
a service that was to have added solemnity to their com- 
memoration. They waited vainly. Not a single priest 
appeared. The clergy did not feel authorized to coun- 
tenance a scientific discovery which, in a former age, 
had been condemned by the authority of the Church. 
This incident is delicately and accurately typical of the 
relation between the modern and the traditional spirit. 
The modern spirit is not hostile to tradition, and would 
not object to receive any consecration which tradition 
might be able to confer, but there are difficulties in 
bringing the two elements together. 

We need not, however, go so far as Warsaw, or back 
to the year 1829, for examples of an unwillingness on 
the part of the modern mind to break entirely with the 
traditional spirit. Our own country is remarkable both 
for the steadiness of its advance towards a future widely 
different from the past, and for an affectionate respect 
for the ideas and institutions that it gradually abandons, 
as it is forced out of them by new conditions of existence. 
I may mention, as one example out of very many, our 
feeling about the reconstruction of the navy. Here is a 
matter in which science has compelled us to break with 
tradition absolutely and irrevocably ; we have done so, but 
we have done so with the greatest regret. The ships of the 
line that our hearts and imaginations love are the ships of 
Nelson and Collingwood and Cochrane. We think of the 
British fleets that bore down upon the enemy with the 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



207 



breeze in their white sails ; we think of the fine qualities 
of seamanship that were fostered in our Agametnnons, and 
Victories, and Temeraires. Will the navies of the future 
ever so clothe their dreadful powers with beauty, as did 
the ordered columns of Nelson, when they came with a 
fair wind and all sails set, at eleven o'clock in the morn- 
ing into Trafalgar Bay? We see the smoke of their 
broadsides rising up to their sails like mists to the snowy 
Alps, and high above, against heaven's blue, the uncon- 
quered flag of England ! Nor do we perceive now for 
the first time that there was poetry in those fleets of 
old ; our forefathers felt it then, and expressed it in a 
thousand songs. 1 

1 I had desired to say something about the uses of tradition in 
the industrial arts and in the fine arts, but the subject is a very large 
one, and I have not time or space to treat it properly here. I may 
observe, however, briefly, that the genuine spirit of tradition has 
almost entirely disappeared from English industry and art, where it 
has been replaced by a spirit of scientific investigation and experi- 
ment. The true traditional spirit was still in full vigour in Japan 
a few years ago, and it kept the industry and art of that country 
up to a remarkably high standard. The traditional spirit is most 
favourable to professional skill, because, under its influence, the 
apprentice learns thoroughly, whereas under other influences he often 
learns very imperfectly. The inferiority of English painting to 
French (considered technically) has been due to the prevalence of a 
traditional spirit in the French school which was almost entirely 
absent from our own. 



PART vr. 

LETTER 
II. 

The ships of 
Nelson. 



Tradition 

favourable 

to technical 

skill. 



208 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Sept ration 
in/amities 

en ; dig ions 

sicbjects 
when there 
is s'ncerity 



LETTER III. 

TO A LADY WHO LAMENTED THAT HER SON HAD INTELLECTUAL 
DOUBTS CONCERNING THE DOGMAS OF THE CHURCH. 

The situation of mother and son a very common one — Painful only 
when the parties are in earnest — The knowledge of the difference 
evidence of a deeper unity — Value of honesty — Evil of a splendid 
official religion not believed by men of culture — Diversity of be- 
lief an evidence of religious vitality — Criticism not to be ignored 
— Desire for the highest attainable truth — Letter from Lady 
Westmorland about her son, Julian Fane. 

The difference which you describe as having arisen 
between your son and you on the most grave and impor- 
tant subject which can occupy the thoughts of men, gives 
the outline of a situation painful to both the parties con- 
cerned, and which lays on each of them new and delicate 
obligations. You do not know how common this situa- 
tion is, and how sadly it interferes with the happiness of 
the very best and most pure-minded souls alive. For such 
a situation produces pain only where both parties are 
earnest and sincere ; and the more earnest both are, the 
more painful does the situation become. If you and 
your son thought of religion merely from the conventional 
point of view, as the world does only too easily, you. 
would meet on a common ground, and might pass through 
life without ever becoming aware of any gulf of separa- 
tion, even though the hollo wness of your several pro- 
fessions were of widely different kinds. But as it happens, 
unfortunately for your peace (yet would you have it 
otherwise?), that you are both in earnest, both anxious 
to believe what is true and do what you believe to be 
right, you are likely to cause each other much suffering 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION, 



209 



of a kind altogether unknown to less honourable and 
devoted natures. There are certain forms of suffering 
which affect only the tenderest and truest hearts ; they 
have so many privileges, that this pain has been imposed 
upon them as the shadow of their sunshine. 

Let me suggest, as some ground of consolation and of 
hope, that your very knowledge of the difference which 
pains you is in itself the evidence of a deeper unity. If 
your son has told you the full truth about the changes 
in his belief, it is probably because you yourself have 
educated him in the habit of truthfulness, which is as 
much a law of religion as it is of honour. Do you wish 
this part of his education to be enfeebled or obliterated ? 
Could the Church herself reasonably or consistently 
blame him for practising the one virtue which, in a peace- 
ful and luxurious society, demands a certain exercise of 
courage? Our beliefs are independent of our will, but 
our honesty is not ; and he who keeps his honesty keeps 
one of the most precious possessions of all true Christians 
and gentlemen. What state of society can be more 
repugnant to high religious feeling than a state of smooth 
external unanimity combined with the indifference of the 
heart, a state in which some splendid official religion 
performs its daily ceremonies as the costliest functionary 
of the Government, whilst the men of culture take a 
share in them out of conformity to the customs of 
society, without either the assent of the intellect or the 
emotion of the soul ? All periods of great religious 
vitality have been marked by great and open diversity 
of belief; and to this day those countries where religion 
is most alive are the farthest removed from unanimity 
in the details of religious doctrine. If your son thinks 
these things of such importance to his conscience that 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
III. 



The habit 
of truth- 
fubiess. 



Honesty a 

frecions 

possessiofi. 



Diversity of 

belief a sign 

of religions , 

vitality. 



210 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

IETTER 
III. 



Critical 

inquiry in 

times of 

great mental 

activity. 



Rest and 
unrest. 



he feels compelled to inflict upon you the slightest pain 
on their account, you may rest assured that his religious 
fibre is still full of vitality. If it were deadened, he 
would argue very much as follows. He would say : 
" These old doctrines of the Church are not of sufficient 
consequence for me to disturb my mother about them. 
What is the use of alluding tctthem ever?" And then 
you would have no anxiety ; and he himself would have 
the feeling of settled peace which comes over a battle- 
field when the dead are buried out of sight. It is the 
peculiarity — some would say the evil, but I cannot think 
it an evil — of an age of great intellectual activity to pro- 
duce an amount of critical inquiry into religious doctrine 
which is entirely unknown to times of simple tradition. 
And in these days the critical tendency has received a 
novel stimulus from the successive suggestions of scien- 
tific discovery. No one who, like your son, fully shares 
in the intellectual life of the times in which he lives, can 
live as if this criticism did not exist. If he affected to 
ignore it, as an objection already answered, there would 
be disingenuousness in the affectation. Fifty years ago, 
even twenty or thirty years ago, a highly intellectual 
young man might have hardened into the fixed convic- 
tions of middle age without any external disturbance, 
except such as might have been easily avoided. The 
criticism existed then, in certain circles ; but it was not 
in the air, as it is now. The life of mankind resembles 
that of a brook which has its times of tranquillity, but 
farther on its times of trouble and unrest. Our imme- 
diate forefathers had the peaceful time for their lot ; 
those who went before them had passed over very rough 
ground at the Reformation. For us, in our turn, comes 
the recurrent restlessness, though not m the same place. 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



211 



What we are going to, who can tell ? What we suffer 
just now, you and many others know too accurately. 
There are gulfs of separation in homes of the most 
perfect love. Our only hope of preserving what is best 
in that purest of earthly felicities lies in the practice of 
an immense charity, a wide tolerance, a sincere respect 
for opinions that are not ours, and a deep trust that the 
loyal pursuit of truth cannot but be in perfect accord- 
ance with the intentions of the Creator, who endowed 
the noblest races of mankind with the indefatigable 
curiosity of science. Not to inquire was possible for 
our forefathers, but it is not possible for us. With our 
intellectual growth has come an irrepressible anxiety 
to possess the highest truth attainable by us. This 
desire is not sinful, not presumptuous, but really 
one of the best and purest of our instincts, being 
nothing else than the sterling honesty of the intellect, 
seeking the harmony of concordant truth, and utterly 
disinterested. 

I may quote, as an illustration of the tendencies pre- 
valent amongst the noblest and most cultivated young 
men, a letter from Lady Westmorland to Mr. Robert 
Lytton about her accomplished son, the now celebrated 
Julian Fane. "We had," she said, "several conver- 
sations, during his last illness, upon religious subjects, 
about which he had his own peculiar views. The fol 
putes and animosities between High and Low Church, 
and all the feuds of religious sectarianism, caused him 
the deepest disgust. I think, indeed, that he carried 
this feeling too far. He had a horror of cant, which I 
also think was exaggerated ; for it gave him a repulsion 
for all outward show of religious observances. He often 
told me that he never missed the practice of prayer, 

P 2 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Impossible 
for u ; not 

to inquire. 



J7ilian 
Fane. 



His 

religious 
views. 



212 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Conversions 

to the 

Church of 

Roine. 



at morning and evening, and at other times. But hi? 
prayers were his own : his own thoughts in his own 
words. He said that he could not pray in the set words 
of another; nor unless he was alone. As to joining in 
family prayers, or praying at church, he found it impos- 
sible. He constantly read the New Testament. He 
deprecated the indiscriminate reading of the Bible. He 
firmly believed in the efficacy of sincere prayer ; and 
was always pleased when I told him I had prayed for 
him." 

To this it may be added, that many recent conver- 
sions to the Church of Rome, though apparently of an 
exactly opposite character, have in reality also been 
brought about by the scientific inquiries of the age. 
The religious sentiment, alarmed at the prospect of 
a possible taking away of that which it feeds upon, 
has sought in many instances to preserve it permanently 
under the guardianship of the strongest ecclesiastical 
authority. In an age of less intellectual disturbance this 
anxiety would scarcely have been felt ; and the degree 
of authority" claimed by one of the reformed Churches 
would have been accepted as sufficient. Here again the 
agitations of the modern intellect have caused division 
in families ; and as you are lamenting the heterodoxy of 
your son, so other parents regret the Roman orthodoxy 
of theirs. 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



213 



LETTER IV. 

TO THE SON OF THE LADY TO WHOM THE PRECEDING LETTER 
WAS ADDRESSED. 

Difficulty of detaching intellectual from religious questions — The 
sacerdotal system — Necessary to ascertain what religion is — Intel- 
lectual religion really nothing but philosophy — The popular in- 
stinct — The test of belief— Public worship — The intellect moral, 
but not religious — Intellectual activity sometimes in contradiction 
to dogma — Differences between the intellectual and religious 
lives. 

Your request is not so simple as it appears. You ask 
me for a frank opinion as to the course your mind is 
taking in reference to very important subjects \ but you 
desire only intellectual, and not religious guidance. The 
difficulty is to effect any clear demarcation between the 
two. Certainly I should never take upon myself to 
offer religious advice to anyone ; it is difficult for those 
who have not qualified themselves for the priestly office 
to do that with force and effect. The manner in which 
a priest leads and manages a mind that has from the 
first been moulded in the beliefs and observances of his 
Church, cannot be imitated by a layman. A priest starts 
always from authority ; his method, which has been in 
use from the earliest ages, consists first in claiming your 
unquestioning assent to certain doctrines, from which 
he immediately proceeds to deduce the inferences that 
may affect your conduct or regulate your thoughts. It 
is a method perfectly adapted to its own ends. It can 
deal with all humanity, and produce the most immediate 
practical results. So long as the assent to the doctrines! 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



The 

sacerdotal 

method. 



214 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



What 
religion is. 



Intellectual 
religion. 



is sincere, the sacerdotal system may contend success- 
fully against some of the strongest forms of evil ; but 
when the assent to the doctrines has ceased to be com- 
plete, when some of them are half-believed and others 
not believed at all, the system loses much of its primi- 
tive efficiency. It seems likely that your difficulty, the 
difficulty of so many intellectual men in these days, is 
to know where the intellectual questions end and the 
purely religious ones can be considered to begin. If you 
could once ascertain that, in a manner definitely satisfac- 
tory, you would take your religious questions to a clergy- 
man and your intellectual ones to a man of science, and 
so get each solved independently. 

Without presuming to offer a solution of so complex a 
difficulty as this, I may suggest to you that it is of some 
importance to your intellectual life to ascertain what 
religion is. A book was published many years ago by a 
very learned author, in which he endeavoured to show 
that what is vulgarly called scepticism may be intellec- 
tual religion. Now, although nothing can be more dis- 
tasteful to persons of culture than the bigotry which 
refuses the name of religion to other people's opinions, 
merely because they are other people's opinions, I 
suspect that the popular instinct is right in denying the 
name of religion to the inferences of the intellect. The 
description which the author just alluded to gave of what 
he called intellectual religion was in fact simply a descrip- 
tion of philosophy, and of that discipline which the best 
philosophy imposes upon the heart and the passions. 
On the other hand, Dr. Arnold, when he says that by 
religion he always understands Christianity, narrows the 
word as much as he would have narrowed the word 
" patriotism " had he defined it to mean a devotion to 



CUS TOM AND TRADITION. 



215 



the interests of England. I think the popular instinct, 
though of course quite unable to construct a definition of 
religion, is in its vague way very well aware of the 
peculiar nature of religious thought and feeling. The 
popular instinct would certainly never confound religion 
with philosophy on the one hand, nor, on the other, 
unless excited to opposition, would it be likely to refuse 
the name of religion to another worship, such as 
Mahometanism, for instance. 

According to the popular instinct, then, which on a 
subject of this kind appears the safest of all guides, a 
religion involves first a belief and next a public practice. 
The nature of the belief is in these days wholly peculiar 
to religion ; in other times it was not so, because then 
people believed other things much in the same way. 
But in these days the test of religious belief is that it 
should make men accept as certain truth what they 
would disbelieve on any other authority. For example, 
a true Roman Catholic believes that the consecrated 
host is the body of Christ, and so long as he lives in the 
purely religious spirit he continues to believe this ; but 
so soon as the power of his religious sentiment declines 
he ceases to believe it, and the wafer appears to him a 
wafer, and no more. And so amongst Protestants the 
truly religious believe many things which no person not 
being under the authority of religion could by any effort 
bring himself to believe. It is easy, for example, to 
believe that Joshua arrested the sun's apparent motion, 
so long as the religious authority of the Bible remains 
perfectly intact ; but no sooner does the reader become 
cxitical than the miracle is disbelieved. In all ages, and 
in all countries, religions have narrated marvellous 
things, and the people have always affirmed that not to 



PART VI. 

LETTER 

IV. 



Nature of 
religion. 



Belief in the 

othertvise 
unbelievable. 



histance of 
a miracle. 



2l6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Religion 

and 

philosophy. 



Philosophy. 



believe these narratives constituted the absence of 
religion, or what they called atheism. They have 
equally, in all ages and countries, held the public act of 
participation in religious worship to be an essential part 
of what they called religion. They do not admit the 
sufficiency of secret prayer. 

Can these popular instincts help us to a definition ? 
They may help us at least to mark the dividing line 
between religion and morality, between religion and 
philosophy. No one has ever desired, more earnestly 
and eagerly than I, to discover the foundations of 
the intellectual religion ; no one has ever felt more 
chilling disappointment in the perception of the plain 
bare fact that the intellect gives morality, philo- 
sophy, precious things indeed, but not religion. It 
is like seeking art by science. Thousands of artists, 
whole schools from generation to generation, have sought 
fine art through anatomy and perspective ; and although 
these sciences did not hinder the born artists from 
coming to art at last, they did not ensure their safe 
arrival in the art-paradise ; in many instances they even 
led men away from art. So it is with the great modern 
search for the intellectual religion ; the idea of it is 
scientific in its source, and the result of it, the last 
definite attainment, is simply intellectual morality, not 
religion in the sense which all humanity has attached to 
religion during all the ages that have preceded ours. We 
may say that philosophy is the religion of the intellectual ; 
and if we go scrupulously to Latin derivations, it is so. 
But taking frankly the received meaning of the word as 
it is used by mankind everywhere, we must admit that, 
although high intellect would lead us inevitably to high 
and pure morality, and to most scrupulously beautiful 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



217 



conduct in everything, towards men, towards women, 
towards even the lower and lowest animals, still it does 
not lead us to that belief in the otherwise unbelievable, 
or to that detailed cultus which is meant by religion in 
the universally accepted sense. It is disingenuous to 
take a word popularly respected and attribute to it 
another sense. Such a course is not strictly honest, and 
therefore not purely intellectual; for the foundation of 
the intellectual life is honesty. 

The difficulty of the intellectual life is, that whilst it 
can never assume a position of hostility to religion, which 
it must always recognize as the greatest natural force for 
the amelioration of mankind, it is nevertheless compelled 
to enunciate truths which may happen to be in contra- 
diction with dogmas received at this or that particular 
time. That you may not suspect me of a disposition to 
dwell continually on safe generalities and to avoid details 
out of timidity, let me mention two cases on which the 
intellectual and scientific find themselves at variance with 
the clergy. The clergy tell us that mankind descend 
from a single pair, and that in the earlier ages the human 
race attained a longevity counted not by decades but by 
centuries. Alexander Humboldt disbelieves the first of 
these propositions, Professor Owen disbelieves the second. 
Men of science generally are of the same opinion. Few 
men of science accept Adam and Eve, few accept 
Methuselah. Professor Owen argues that, since the 
oldest skeletons known have the same system of teething 
that we have, man can never have lived long enough to 
require nine sets of teeth. In regard to these, and a 
hundred other points on which science advances new 
views, the question which concerns us is how we are 
to maintain the integrity of the intellectual life. The 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Difficulty 

of the 

intellectual 

life. 



Tradition 
and science. 



2l8 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Preserva- 
tion of our 
honesty. 



Intellectual 

and 

religious 

lives. 



danger is the loss of inward ingenuousness, the attempt 
to persuade ourselves that we believe opposite state- 
ments. If once we admit disingenuousness into the 
mind, the intellectual life is no longer serene and pure. 
The plain course for the preservation of our honesty, 
which is the basis of truly intellectual thinking, is to 
receive the truth, whether agreeable or the contrary, with 
all its train of consequences, however repulsive or dis- 
couraging. In attempting to reconcile scientific truth 
with the oldest traditions of humanity, there is but one 
serious danger, the loss of intellectual integrity. Of 
that possession modern society has little left to lose. 

But let us understand that the intellectual life and the 
religious life are as distinct as the scientific and the 
artistic lives. They may be led by the same person, but 
by the same person in different moods. They coincide 
on some points, accidentally. Certainly, the basis of 
high thinking is perfect honesty, and honesty is a recog- 
nized religious virtue. Where the two minds differ is on 
the importance of authority. The religious life is based 
upon authority, the intellectual life is based upon 
personal investigation. From the intellectual point of 
view I cannot advise you to restrain the spirit of investi 
gation, which is the scientific spirit. It may lead you 
very far, yet always to truth, ultimately, — you, or those 
after you, whose path yoil may be destined to prepare. 
Science requires a certain inward heat and heroism in 
her votaries, notwithstanding the apparent coldness of 
her statements. Especially does she require that intel- 
lectual fearlessness which accepts a proved fact without 
reference to its personal or its social consequences. 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



219 



LETTER V. 

TO A FRIEND WHO SEEMED TO TAKE CREDIT TO HIMSELF, INTEL- 
LECTUALLY, FROM THE NATURE OF HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 

Anecdote of a Swiss gentleman — Religious belief protects traditions, 
but does not weaken the critical faculty itself — Illustration from 
the art of etching— Sydney Smith — Dr. Arnold— Earnest reli- 
gious belief of Ampere— Comte and Sainte-Beuve — Faraday — 
Belief or unbelief proves nothing for or against intellectual 
capacity. 

I happened once to be travelling in Switzerland with an 
eminent citizen of that country, and I remember how in 
speaking of some place we passed through he associated 
together the ideas of Protestantism and intellectual supe 
riority in some such phrase as this : " The people here 
are very superior ; they are Protestants." There seemed 
to exist, in my companion's mind, an assumption that 
Protestants would be superior people intellectually, or 
that superior people would be Protestants ; and this set 
me thinking whether, in the course of such experience as 
had fallen in my way, I had found that religious creed 
made much difference in the matter of intellectual 
acumen or culture. 

The exact truth appears to be this. A religious belief 
protects this or that subject against intellectual action, 
but it does not affect the energy of the intellectual action 
upon subjects which are not so protected. Let me illus- 
trate this by a reference to one of the fine arts, the art of 
etching. The etcher protects a copper-plate by means 
of a waxy covering called etching-ground, and wherever 
this ground is removed the acid bites the copper. The 



PART VI. 

LETTER 



Anecdote 0/ 
a Swiss 

gentleman. 



Effects of 

religions 

belie/. 



220 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 



Protection 

of tradition 

by beiief. 



Intellectual 
acumen of 
the clergy. 



A mpire 
a sincere 
Catholic. 



waxy ground does not in the least affect the strength of 
the acid, it only intervenes between it and the metal 
plate. So it is in the mind of man with regard to his 
intellectual acumen and his religious creed. The creed 
may protect a tradition from the operation of the critical 
faculty, but it does not weaken the critical faculty itself. 
In the English Church, for example, the Bible is pro- 
tected against criticism; but this does not weaken the 
critical faculty of English clergymen with reference to 
other literature, and many of them give evidence of a 
strong critical faculty in all matters not protected by 
their creed. Think of the vigorous common-sense of 
Sydney Smith, exposing so many abuses, at a time when 
it needed not only much courage but great originality 
to expose them ! Remember the intellectual force of 
Arnold, a great natural force if ever there was one — so 
direct in action, so independent of contemporary opinion * 
Intellectual forces of this kind act freely not only in the 
Church of England, but in other Churches, even in the 
Church of Rome. Who amongst the scientific men of 
this century has been more profoundly scientific, more 
capable of original scientific discovery, than Ampere ? 
Yet Ampere was a Roman Catholic, and not a Roman 
Catholic in the conventional sense merely, like the 
majority of educated Frenchmen, but a hearty and 
enthusiastic believer in the doctrines of the Church of 
Rome. The belief in transubstantiation did not prevent 
Ampere from becoming one of the best chemists of his 
time, just as the belief in the plenary inspiration of the 
New Testament does not prevent a good Protestant from 
becoming an acute critic of Greek literature generally. 
A man may have the finest scientific faculty, the 
most advanced scientific culture, and still believe the 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



221 



consecrated wafer to be the body of Jesus Christ. For 
since he still believes it to be the body of Christ under 
the apparent form of a wafer, it is evident that the wafer 
under chemical analysis would resolve itself into the 
same elements as before consecration ; therefore why 
consult chemistry? What has chemistry to say to a 
mystery of this kind, the essence of which is the com- 
plete disguise of a human body under a form in all 
respects answering the material semblance of a wafer? 
Ampere must have foreseen the certain results of analysis 
as clearly as the best chemist educated in the principles 
of Protestantism, but this did not prevent him from 
adoring the consecrated host in all the sincerity of his 
heart. 

I say that it does not follow, because M. or N. 
happens to be a Protestant, that he is intellectually 
superior to Ampere, or because M. or N. happens to be 
a Unitarian, or a Deist, or a Positivist, that he is intel- 
lectually superior to Dr. Arnold or Sydney Smith. And 
on the other side of this question it is equally unfair to 
conclude that because a man does not share whatever 
may be our theological beliefs on the positive side, he 
must be less capable intellectually than we are. Two of 
the finest and most disciplined modern intellects, Comte 
and Sainte-Beuve, were neither Catholics, nor Protes- 
tants, nor Deists, but convinced atheists ; yet Comte 
until the period of his decline, and Sainte-Beuve up to 
the very hour of his death, were quite in the highest 
rank of modern scientific and literary intellect. 

The inference from these facts which concerns every 
one of us is, that we are not to build up any edifice of 
intellectual self-satisfaction on the ground that in theo- 
logical matters we believe or disbelieve this thing or 



part vr. 

LETTER 



Transub- 
stantiation. 



Comte and 
Sainte- 
Beuve. 



222 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 

V. 

Faraday. 



Sainte- 
Beuve. 



LETTER 
VI. 



that. If Ampere believed the doctrines of the Church 
of Rome, which to us seem so incredible, if Faraday re- 
mained throughout his brilliant intellectual career (cer- 
tainly one of the most brilliant ever lived through by a 
human being) a sincere member of the obscure sect of 
the Sandemanians, we are not warranted in the con- 
clusion that we are intellectually their betters because 
our theology is more novel, or more fashionable, or more 
in harmony with reason. Nor, on the other hand, does 
our orthodoxy prove anything in favour of our mental 
force and culture. Who, amongst the most orthodox 
writers, has a more forcible and cultivated intellect than 
Sainte-Beuve ? — who can better give us the tone of 
perfect culture, with its love of justice, its thorough- 
ness in preparation, its superiority to all crudeness 
and violence ? Anglican or Romanist, dissenter or heretic, 
may be our master in the intellectual sphere, from which 
no sincere and capable labourer is excluded, either by 
his belief or by his unbelief. 



LETTER VI. 

TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC FRIEND WHO ACCUSED THE INTELLECTUAL 
CLASS OF A WANT OF REVERENCE FOR AUTHORITY. 

Necessity for treating affirmations as if they were doubtful — The 
Papal Infallibility — The Infallibility of the Sacred Scriptures — 
Opposition of method between Intellect and Faith — The perfec- 
tion of the intellectual life requires intellectual methods — In- 
evitable action of the intellectual forces. 

It is very much the custom, in modern writing about 
liberty of thought, to pass lightly over the central diffi- 
culty, which sooner or later will have to be considered 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



223 



The difficulty is this, that the freedom of the intellectual 
life can never be secured except by treating as if they 
were doubtful several affirmations which large masses 
of mankind hold to be certainties as indisputable as 
the facts of science. One of the most recently con- 
spicuous of these affirmations is the infallibility of the 
Pope of Rome. Nothing can be more certain in the 
opinion of immense numbers of Roman Catholics 
than the infallible authority of the Supreme Pontiff on 
all matters affecting doctrine. But then the matters 
affecting doctrine include many subjects which come 
within the circle of the sciences. History is one of 
those subjects which modern intellectual criticism takes 
leave to study after its own methods, and yet certain 
prevalent views of history are offensive to the Pope 
and explicitly condemned by him. The consequence is, 
that in order to study history with mental liberty, we 
have to act practically as if there existed a doubt of the 
Papal infallibility. The same difficulty occurs with refer- 
ence to the great Protestant doctrine which attributes 
a similar infallibility to the various authors who com- 
posed what are now known to us as the Holy Scriptures. 
Our men of science act, and the laws of scientific 
investigation compel them to act, as if it were not 
quite certain that the views of scientific subjects held 
by those early writers were so final as to render modern 
investigation superfluous. It is useless to disguise the 
fact that there is a real opposition of method between 
intellect and faith, and that the independence of the 
intellectual life can never be fully secured unless all 
affirmations based upon authority are treated as if they 
were doubtful. This implies no change of manner in 
the intellectual classes towards those classes whose 



PART VI. 

LETTER 



Infallibility 
of the Pope. 



Infallibility 
of the 

Scriptures. 



Opposition 
of method 

between 

intellect and 

faith. 



224 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
VI. 



The intellect 

does not 

recog7iize 

authority. 



The perfec- 
tion of the 
intellectual 
hfe. 



mental habits are founded upon obedience. I mean 
that the man of science does not treat the affirmations 
of any priesthood with less respect than the affirmations 
of his own scientific brethren ; he applies with perfect 
impartiality the same criticism to all affirmations, from 
whatever source they emanate. The intellect does not 
recognize authority in any one, and intellectual men do 
not treat the Pope, or the author of Genesis, with less 
consideration than those famous persons who in their 
day have been the brightest luminaries of science. The 
difficulty, however, remains, that whilst the intellectual 
class has no wish to offend either those who believe in 
the infallibility of the Pope, or those who believe in the 
infallibility of the author of Genesis, it is compelled to 
conduct its own investigations as if those infallibilities 
were matters of doubt and not of certainty. 

Why this is so, may be shown by a reference to the 
operation of Nature in other ways. The rewards of 
physical strength and health are not given to the most 
moral, to the most humane, to the most gentle, but to 
those who have acted, and whose forefathers have acted, 
in the most perfect accordance with the laws of their 
physical constitution. So the perfection of the intellec- 
tual life is not given to the most humble, the most be- 
'ieving, the most obedient, but to those who use their 
minds according to the most purely intellectual methods. 
One of the most important truths that human beings can 
know is the perfectly independent working of the natural 
laws : one of the best practical conclusions to be drawn 
from the observation of Nature is that in the conduct of 
our own understandings we should use a like indepen- 
dence. 

It would be wrong, in writing to you on subjects so 



CUSTOM AND TRADITION. 



225 



important as these, to shrink from handling the real 
difficulties. Everyone now is aware that science must 
and will pursue her own methods and work according to 
her own laws, without concerning herself with the most 
authoritative affirmations from without. But if science 
said one thing and authoritative tradition said another, 
no perfectly ingenuous person could rest contented until 
he had either reconciled the two or decidedly rejected 
one of them. It is impossible for a mind which is honest 
towards itself to admit that a proposition is true and false 
at the same time, true in science and false in theology. 
Therefore, although the intellectual methods are entirely 
independent of tradition, it may easily happen that the 
indirect results of our following those methods may be 
the overthrow of some dogma which has for many gene- 
rations been considered indispensable to man's spiritual 
welfare. With regard to this contingency it need only 
be observed that the intellectual forces of humanity must 
act, like floods and winds, according to their own laws ; 
and that if they cast down any edihce too weak to resist 
them, it must be because the original constructors had 
not built it substantially, or because those placed in charge 
of it had neglected to keep it in repair. This is their 
business, not ours. Our work is simply to ascertain 
truth by our own independent methods, alike without 
hostility to any persons claiming authority, and without 
deference to them. 



PART VI. 

LETTER 
VI. 

Science and 
authority. 



Possible 

consequences 

°s 

intellectual 
activity. 



PART VII. 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
I. 



How little 
we Avow 

about 
marriage. 



LETTER I. 

r 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF INTELLECTUAL TASTES, WHO, 
WITHOUT HAVING AS YET ANY PARTICULAR LADY IN VIEW, 
HAD EXPRESSED, IN A GENERAL WAY, HIS DETERMINATION 
TO GET MARRIED. 

How ignorant we all are about marriage— People wrong in their 
estimates of the marriages of others— Effects of marriage on the 
intellectual life— Two courses open — A wife who would not 
interfere with elevated pursuits — A wife capable of under- 
standing them- -Madame Ingres— Difference in the education of 
the sexes — Difficulty of educating a wife. 

The subject of marriage is one concerning which neither 
I nor anybody else can have more than an infinitesimally 
small atom of knowledge. Each of us knows how his 
or her own marriage has turned out ■ but that, in com- 
parison with a knowledge of marriage generally, is like a 
single plant in comparison with the flora of the globe. 
The utmost experience on this subject to be found in 
this country extends to about three trials or experiments. 
A man may become twice a widower, and then marry a 
third time, but it may be easily shown that the variety of 
his experience is more than counterbalanced by its incom- 
pleteness in each instance. For the experiment to be 



WOMEN AMD MARRIAGE. 



227 



conclusive even as to the wisdom of one decision, it 
must extend over half a lifetime. A true marriage is not 
a mere temporary arrangement, and although a young 
couple are said to be married as soon as the lady has 
changed her name, the truth is that the real marriage is 
a long slow intcrgrowth, like that of two trees planted 
quite close together in the forest. 

The subject of marriage generally is one of which men 
know less than they know of any other subject of uni- 
versal interest. People are almost always wrong in their 
estimates of the marriages of others, and the best proof 
how little we know the real tastes and needs of those 
with whom we have been most intimate, is our unfail- 
ing surprise at the marriages they make. Very old and 
experienced people fancy they know a great deal about 
younger couples, but their guesses, there is good reason 
to believe, never exactly hit the mark. 

Ever since this idea, that marriage is a subject we are 
all very ignorant about, had taken root in my own mind, 
many little incidents were perpetually occurring to con- 
firm it ; they proved to me, on the one hand, how often I 
had been mistaken about other people, and, on the other 
hand, how mistaken about people were concerning the 
only marriage I profess to know anything about, namely, 
my own. 

Our ignorance is all the darker that few men tell us the 
little that they know, that little being too closely bound 
up with that innermost privacy of life which every man of 
right feeling respects in his own case, as in the case of 
another. The only instances which are laid bare to the 
public view are the unhappy marriages, which are really 
not marriages at all. An unhappy alliance bears exactly 
the same relation to a true marriage that disease docs to 

Q 2 



PART VII. 

LETTJ K 
1. 



Our ;///r- 

takes about 

the 

marriages of 

oilers. 



Privacy of 

m irriage. 



Uiihat>f>y 
in i> >i lifts. 



228 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
I. 



Only two 
courses open 

for the 
intellectual 



Danger of 

unequal 
marriages. 



health, and the quarrels and misery of it are the crises by 
which Nature tries to bring about either the recovery of 
happiness, or the endurable peace of a settled separation. 

All that we really know about marriage is that it is 
based upon the most powerful of all our instincts, and 
that it shows its own justification in its fruits, especially 
in the prolonged and watchful care of children. But 
marriage is very complex in its effects, and there is one 
set of effects, resulting from it, to which remarkably little 
attention has been paid hitherto, — I mean its effects 
upon the intellectual life. Surely they deserve consi- 
deration by all who value culture. 

I believe that for an intellectual man, only two courses 
are open ; either he ought to marry some simple dutiful 
woman who will bear him children, and see to the house- 
hold matters, and love him in a trustful spirit without 
jealousy of his occupations ; or else, on the other hand, he 
ought to marry some highly intelligent lady, able to carry 
her education far beyond school experiences, and willing 
to become his companion in the arduous paths of intel- 
lectual labour. The danger in the first of the two cases 
is that pointed out by Wordsworth in some verses 
addressed to lake-tourists who might feel inclined to buy 
a peasant's cottage in Westmoreland. The tourist would 
spoil the little romantic spot if he bought it ; the charm of 
it is subtly dependent upon the poetry of a simple life, and 
would be brushed away by the influence of the things 
that are necessary to people in the middle class. I 
remember dining in a country inn with an English officer 
whose ideas were singularly unconventional. We were 
waited upon by our host's daughter, a beautiful girl, whose 
manners were remarkable for their natural elegance and 
distinction. It seemed to us both that no lady of rank 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



229 



could be more distinguished than she was ; and my 
companion said that he thought a gentleman might do 
worse than ask that girl to marry him, and settle down 
quietly in that quiet mountain village, far from the cares 
and vanities of the world. That is a sort of dream which 
has occurred no doubt to many an honourable man. 
Some men have gone so far as to try to make die dream 
a reality, and have married the beautiful peasant. But 
the difficulty is that she does not remain what she was; 
she becomes a sort of make-belief lady, and then her 
ignorance, which in her natural condition was a charming 
naivete, becomes an irritating defect. If, however, it 
were possible for an .intellectual man to marry some 
simple-hearted peasant girl, and keep her carefully in her 
original condition, I seriously believe that the venture 
would be less perilous to his culture than an alliance 
with some woman of our Philistine classes, equally 
incapable of comprehending his pursuits, but much 
more likely to interfere with them. I once had a con- 
versation on this subject with a distinguished artist, who 
is now a widower, and who is certainly not likely to be 
prejudiced against marriage by his own experience, which 
had been an unusually happy one. His view was that a 
man devoted to art might marry either a plain-minded 
woman, who would occupy herself exclusively with 
household matters and shield his peace by taking these 
cares upon herself, or else a woman quite capable of 
entering into his artistic life ; but he was convinced that 
a marriage which exposed him to unintelligent criticism 
and interference would be dangerous in the highest 
degree. And of the two kinds of marriage which he 
considered possible he preferred the former, that with 
the entirely ignorant and simple person from whom no 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



Peasant- 
girl- 



Opinion of 

a dis- 
tinguished 

artist. 



230 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
I. 

Madame 
Ingres. 



Ideal 

marriage of 

a man of 

culture. 



Separation 

of the sexes 

in early 

mental 

training. 



interference was to be apprehended. He considered 
the first Madame Ingres the true model of an artist's 
wife, because she did all in her power to guard her 
husband's peace against the daily cares of life and never 
herself disturbed it, acting the part of a breakwater 
which protects a space of calm, and never destroys the 
peace that it has made. This may be true for artists 
whose occupation is rather aesthetic than intellectual, and 
does not get much help or benefit from talk \ but the 
ideal marriage for a man of great literary culture would 
be one permitting some equality of companionship, or, 
if not equality, at least interest. That this ideal is not a 
mere dream, but may consolidate into a happy reality, 
several examples prove ; yet these examples are not so 
numerous as to relieve me from anxiety about your 
chances of finding such companionship. The different 
education of the two sexes separates them widely at the 
beginning, and to meet on any common ground of 
culture a second education has to be gone through. It 
rarely happens that there is resolution enough for this. 

The want of thoroughness and reality in the education 
of both sexes, but especially in that of women, may be 
attributed to a sort of policy which is not very favour- 
able to companionship in married life. It appears to be 
thought wise to teach boys things which women do not 
learn, in order to give women a degree of respect for 
men's attainments, which they would not be so likely to 
feel if they were prepared to estimate them critically \ 
whilst girls are taught arts and languages which until 
recently were all but excluded from our public schools, 
and won no rank at our universities. Men and women 
had consequently scarcely any common ground to meet 
upon, and the absence of serious mental discipline in 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



231 



the training of women made them indisposed to submit 
to the irksomeness of that earnest intellectual labour 
which might have remedied the deficiency. The total 
lack of accuracy in their mental habits was then, and is 
still for the immense majority of women, the least easily 
surmountable impediment to culture. The history of 
many marriages which have failed to realize intellectual 
companionship is comprised in a sentence which was 
actually uttered by one of the most accomplished of my 
friends: "She knew nothing when I married her. I 
tried to teach her something j it made her angry, and I 
gave it up." 

LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE. 

The foundations of the intellectual marriage— Marriage not a 
snare or pitfall for the intellectual — Men of culture, who 
marry badly, often have themselves to blame— For every grade 
of the masculine intellect there exists a corresponding grade 
of the feminine intellect— Difficulty of finding the true mate 

French University Professors— An extreme case of intellectual 

separation— Regrets of a widow— Women help us less by 
adding to our knowledge than by understanding us. 

In several letters which have preceded this I have indi- 
cated some of the differences between the female sex 
and ours, and it is time to examine the true foundations 
of the intellectual marriage. Let me affirm, to begin 
with, my profound faith in the natural arrangement. 
There is in nature so much evident care for the deve- 
lopment of the intellectual life, so much protection of it 
in the social order, there are such admirable contrivances 
for continuing it from century to century, that we may 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
I. 



History of 
many 

marriages 
that have 
failed. 



LETTER 
11. 



Faith in the 

natural 

arrange^ 

ment. 



2\2 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
II 



The 

intellectual 
marriage- 



Meti have 
themselves 
to blame for 
ill-assorted 



fairly count upon some provision for its necessities in 
marriage. Intellectual men are not less alive to the 
charms of women than other men are ; indeed the greatest 
of them have always delighted in the society of women. 
If marriage were really dangerous to the intellectual life, 
it would be a moral snare or pitfall, from which the best 
and noblest would be least likely to escape. It is hard 
to believe that the strong passions which so often accom- 
pany high intellectual gifts were intended either to drive 
their possessors into immorality or else to the misery of 
ill-assorted unions. 

No, there is such a thing as the intellectual marriage, 
in which the intellect itself is married. If such marriages 
are not frequent, it is that they are not often made the 
jdeliberate purpose of a wise alliance. Men choose their 
wives because they are pretty, or because they are rich, 
or because they are well-connected, but rarely for the 
permanent interest of their society. Yet who that had 
ever been condemned to the dreadful embarrassments of 
a tete-a-tete with an uncompanionable person, could reflect 
without apprehension on a lifetime of such tete-a-tetes ? 

When intellectual men suffer from this misery they 
have themselves to blame. What is the use of having 
any mental superiority, if, in a matter so enormously im- 
portant as the choice of a companion for life, it fails to 
give us a warning when the choice is absurdly unsuitable ? 
When men complain, as they do not unfrequently, that 
their wives have no ideas, the question inevitably suggests 
itself, why the superiority of the masculine intellect did 
not, in these cases, permit it to discover the defect in 
time? If we are so clever as to be bored by ordinary 
vvomen, why cannot our cleverness find out the feminine 
cleverness which would respond to it ? 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



233 



What I am going to say now is in its very nature in- 
capable of proof, and yet the longer I live the more the 
truth of it is " borne in upon me." I feel convinced that 
for every grade of the masculine intellect there exists a 
corresponding grade of the feminine intellect, so that a 
precisely suitable 'intellectual marriage is always possible 
for everyone. But since the higher intellects are rare, 
and rare in proportion to their elevation, it follows that 
the difficulty of finding the* true mate increases with the 
mental strength and culture of the man. If the " mental 
princes," as Blake called himself, are to marry the mental 
princesses, they will not always discover them quite so 
easily as kings' sons find kings' daughters. 

This difficulty of finding the true mate is the real 
reason why so many clever men marry silly or stupid 
women. The women about them seem to be all very 
much alike, mentally ; it seems hopeless to expect any 
real companionship, and the clever men are decided 
by the colour of a girl's eyes, or a thousand pounds 
more in her dowry, or her relationship to a peer of 
the realm. 

It was remarked to me by a French university professor, 
that although men in his position had on the whole much 
more culture than the middle class, they had an extra- 
ordinary talent for winning the most vulgar and ignorant 
wives. The explanation is, that their marriages are not 
intellectual marriages at all. The class of French pro- 
fessors is not advantageously situated ; it has not great 
facilities for choice. Their incomes are so small that, 
unless helped by private means, the first thing they can 
prudently look to in a wife is her utility as a domestic 
servant, which, in fact, it is her destiny to become. The 
intellectual disparity is from the beginning likely to be 



PART VII 

LETTER 
II. 



Difficulty of 

fi?iding the 

true mate. 



French 
university 
pro/t ssors. 



234 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



VII 



PART 

LETTER 
II. 



Course of 
married life 

•with an 
uneducated 

woman. 



very great, because the professor is confined to the country- 
town where his Lyce'e happens to be situated, and in that 
town he does not always see the most cultivated society. 
He may be an intellectual prince, but where is he to find 
his princess ? The marriage begins without the idea of 
intellectual companionship, and it continues as it began. 
The girl was uneducated : it seems hopeless to try to 
educate the woman ; and then there is the supreme diffi- 
culty, only to be overcome by two wills at once most 
resolute and most persistent, namely, how to find the 
time. Years pass ; the husband is occupied all day ; the 
wife needs to cheer herself with a little society, and goes 
to sit with neighbours who are not likely to add anything 
valuable to her knowledge or to give any elevation to 
her thoughts. Then comes the final fixing and crystalli- 
zation of her intellect, after which, however much pains 
and labour might be taken by the pair, she is past the 
possibility of change. 

These women are often so good and devoted that 
their husbands enjoy great happiness ; but it is a kind of 
happiness curiously independent of the lady's presence. 
The professor may love his wife, and fully appreciate her 
qualities as a housekeeper, but he passes a more interest- 
ing evening with some male friend whose reading is equal 
to his own. Sometimes the lady perceives this, and it is 
an element of sadness in her life. 

" I never see my husband," she tells you, not in anger. 
" His work occupies him all day, and in the evening he 
sees his friends." The pair walk out together twice a 
week. I sometimes wonder what they say to each other 
during those conjugal promenades. They talk about 
their children, probably, and the little recurring diffi- 
culties about money. He cannot talk about his studies, 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



235 



or the intellectual speculations which his studies con- 
tinually suggest. 

The most extreme case of intellectual separation be- 
tween husband and wife that ever came under my 
observation was, however, not that of a French pro- 
fessor, but a highly-cultivated Scotch lawyer. He was 
one of the most intellectual men I ever knew — a little 
cynical, but full of original power, and uncommonly well- 
informed. His theory was, that women ought not to be 
admitted into the region of masculine thought — that it 
was not good for them ; and he acted so consistently up 
to this theory, that although he would open his mind 
with the utmost frankness to a male acquaintance over 
the evening whisky-toddy, there was not whisky enough 
in all Scotland to make him frank in the presence of his 
wife. She really knew nothing whatever about his intel- 
lectual existence ; and yet there was nothing in his ways 
of thinking which an honourable man need conceal from 
an intelligent woman. His theory worked well enough 
in practice, and his reserve was so perfect that it may be 
doubted whether even feminine subtlety ever suspected 
it. The explanation of his system may perhaps have 
been this. He was an exceedingly busy man ; he felt 
that he had not time to teach his wife to know him as he 
was, and so preferred to leave her with her own concep- 
tion of him, rather than disturb that conception when he 
believed it impossible to replace it by a completely true 
one. We all act in that way with those whom we con- 
sider quite excluded from our private range of thought. 

All this may be very prudent and wise : there may be 
degrees of conjugal felicity, satisfactory in their way, 
without intellectual intercourse,- and yet I cannot think 
that any man of high culture could regard his marriage 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
II. 

A 11 extreme 
instance of 
intellectual 
separation 
in marriage. 



236 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
II. 

Regrets of 
a widow. 



Women good 

pupils and 

bad solitary 

learnsrs. 



How women 
help us. 



as altogether a successful one so long as his wife re- 
mained shut out from his mental life. Nor is the ex- 
clusion always quite agreeable for the lady herself. A 
widow said to me that her husband had never thought 
it necessary to try to raise her to his own level, yet 
she believed that with his kindly help she might have 
attained it. 

You, with your masculine habits, may observe, as to 
this, that if the lady had seriously cared to attain a 
higher level she might have achieved it by her own 
private independent effort But this is exactly what the 
feminine nature never does. A clever woman is the best 
of pupils, when she loves her teacher, but the worst of 
solitary learners. 

It is not by adding to our knowledge, but by under- 
standing us, that women are our helpers. They understand 
us far better than men do, when once they have the 
degree of preliminary information which enables them to 
enter into our pursuits. Men are occupied with theii 
personal works and thoughts, and have wonderfully little 
sympathy left to enable them to comprehend us ; but a 
woman, by her divine sympathy — divine indeed, since it 
was given by God for this — can enter into our inmost 
thought, and make allowances for all our difficulties. 
Talk about your work and its anxieties to a club of 
masculine friends, they will give very little heed to you ; 
they are all thinking about themselves, and they will 
dislike your egotism because they have so much egotism 
of their own, which yours invades and inconveniences. 
But talk in the same way to any woman who has educa- 
tion enough to enable her to follow you, and she will 
listen so kindly, and so very intelligently, that you will 
be betraved into interminable confidences. 



WOMEN AJSTD MARK [AGE. 



237 



Now, although an intellectual man may not care to 
make himself understood by all the people in the street, 
it is not a good thing for him to feel that he is under- 
stood by nobody. The intellectual life is sometimes a 
fearfully solitary one. Unless he lives in a great capital 
the man devoted to that life is more than all other men 
liable to suffer from isolation, to feel utterly alone be- 
neath the deafness of space and the silence of the stars. 
Give him one friend who can understand him, who will 
not leave him, who will always be accessible by day and 
night — one friend, one kindly listener, just one, and the 
whole universe is changed. It is deaf and indifferent no 
longer, and whilst she listens, it seems as if all men and 
angels listened also, so perfectly his thought is mirrored 
in the light of her answering eyes. 



LETTER III. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE. 

The intellectual ideal of marriage — The danger of dulness — To 
be counteracted only by the renewal of both minds — Example 
of Lady Baker — Separation of the sexes by an old prejudice 
about education— This prejudice on the decline — Influence of 
the late Prince Consort. 

How far may you hope to realize the intellectual ideal 
of marriage ? Have I ever observed in actual life any 
approximate realization of that ideal ? 

These are the two questions which conclude and 
epitomize the last of your recent letters. Let me 
endeavour to answer them as satisfactorily as the 
obscurity of the subject will permit. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Isolation 

pre~<'eit.led 

by marriage. 



LETTER 
III. 



Intellectual. 

ideal of 
marriage. 



2X6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
III. 



Friends 

whom we 

know too 

well. 



Dulness of 

perfect 
intimacy. 



The evil 
may be 
counter- 
acted. 



The intellectual ideal seems to be that of a conversa- 
tion on all the subjects you most care about, which should 
never lose its interest. Is it possible that two people 
should live together and talk to each other every day 
for twenty years without knowing each other's views 
too well for them to seem worth expressing or worth 
listening to? There are friends whom we know too well, 
so that our talk with them has less of refreshment and 
entertainment than a conversation with the first in- 
telligent stranger on the quarter-deck of the steamboat. 
It is evident that from the intellectual point of view this 
is the great danger of marriage. It may become dull, 
not because the mental force of either of the parties has 
declined, but because each has come to know so accu- 
rately beforehand what the other will say on any given 
topic, that inquiry is felt to be useless. This too perfect 
intimacy, which has ended many a friendship outside of 
marriage, may also terminate the intellectual life in 
matrimony itself. 

Let us not pass too lightly over this danger, for it is 
not to be denied. Unless carefully provided against, it 
will gradually extinguish the light that plays between the 
wedded intelligences as the electric light burns between 
two carbon points. 

I venture to suggest, however, that this evil may be 
counteracted by persons of some energy and originality. 
This is one of those very numerous cases in which an 
evil is sure to arrive if nothing is done to prevent it, yet 
in which the evil need not arrive when those whom it 
menaces are forewarned. To take an illustration intelli- 
gible in these days of steam-engines. We know that if 
the water is allowed to get very low in the boiler a 
destructive explosion will be the consequence ; yet, since 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE, 



239 



every stoker is aware of this, such explosions are not of 
frequent occurrence. That evil is continually approach- 
ing and yet continually averted by the exercise of human 
foresight. 

Let us suppose that a married couple are clearly 
aware that in the course of years their society is sure 
to become mutually uninteresting unless something is 
done to preserve the earlier zest of it. What is that 
something ? 

That which an author does for the unknown multitude 
of his readers. 

Eveiy author who succeeds takes the trouble to renew 
his mind either by fresh knowledge or new thoughts. Is 
it not at least equally worth while to do as much to 
preserve the interest of marriage ? Without undervaluing 
the friendly adhesion of many readers, without affecting 
any contempt for fame, which is dearer to the human 
heart than wealth itself whenever it appears to be not 
wholly unattainable, may not I safely affirm that the 
interest of married life, from its very nearness, has a still 
stronger influence upon the mind of any thinking person, 
of either sex, than the approbation of unnumbered 
readers in distinct countries or continents ? You never 
see the effect of your thinking on your readers ; they live 
and die far away from you, a few write letters of praise 
or criticism, the thousands give no sign. But the wife is 
with you always, she is almost as near to you as your 
own body ; the world, to you, is a figure-picture in which 
there is one figure, the rest is merely background. And 
if an author takes pains to renew his mind for the 
people in the background, is it not at least equally worth 
your while to bring fresh thought for the renewal of your 
life with her ? 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
III. 



Means cff 
preventing 
dulness in 
marriage. 



240 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
HI. 



Instances of 

women 

renewing 

their minds 
for their 
husbafids. 



This, then, is my theory of the intellectual marriage, 
that the two wedded intellects ought to renew them- 
selves continually for each other. And I argue that if 
this were done in earnest, the otherwise inevitable dulness 
would be perpetually kept at bay. 

To the other question, whether in actual life I have 
ever seen this realized, I answer yes, in several in 
stances. 

Not in very many instances, yet in more than one. 
Women, when they have conceived the idea that this 
renewal is necessary, have resolution enough for the 
realization of it. There is hardly any task too hard for 
them, if they believe it essential to the conjugal life. I 
could give you the name and address of one who 
mastered Greek in order not to be excluded from her 
husband's favourite pursuit ; others have mastered other 
languages for the same object, and even some branch of 
science, for which the feminine mind has less natural 
affinity than it has for imaginative literature. Their 
remarkable incapacity for independent mental labour is 
accompanied by an equally remarkable capacity for labour 
under an accepted masculine guidance. In this connec- 
tion I may without impropriety mention one English- 
woman, for she is already celebrated, the wife of Sir 
Samuel Baker, the discoverer of the Albert Nyanza. She 
stood with him on the shore of that unknown sea, when 
first it was beheld by English eyes ; she had passed with 
him through all the hard preliminary toils and trials. She 
had learned Arabic with him in a year of necessary but 
wearisome delay ; her mind had travelled with his mind 
as her feet had followed his footsteps. Scarcely less 
beautiful, if less heroic, is the picture of the geologist's 
wife, Mrs. Buckland, who taught herself to reconstruct 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



241 



broken fossils, and did it with a surprising delicacy, and 
patience, and skill, full of science, yet more than science, 
the perfection of feminine art. 

The privacy of married life often prevents us from 
knowing the extent to which intelligent women have 
renewed their minds by fresh and varied culture for the 
purpose of retaining their ascendency over their husbands, 
or to keep up the interest of their lives. It is done much 
more frequently by women than by men. They have so 
much less egotism, so much more adaptability, that they 
fit themselves to us oftener than we adapt ourselves to 
them. But in a quite perfect marriage these efforts would 
be mutual. The husband would endeavour to make life 
interesting to his companion by taking a share in some 
pursuit which was really her own. It is easier for us than 
it was for our ancestors to do this — at least for our imme- 
diate ancestors. There existed, fifty years ago, a most 
irrational prejudice, very strongly rooted in the social 
conventions of the time, about masculine and feminine 
accomplishments. The educations of the two sexes were 
so trenchantly separated that neither had access to the 
knowledge of the other. The men had learned Latin 
and Greek, of which the women were ignorant; the 
women had learned French or Italian, which the men 
could neither read nor speak. The ladies studied fine 
art, not seriously, but it occupied a good deal of their 
time and thoughts ; the gentlemen had a manly contempt 
for it, which kept them, as contempt always does, in a 
state of absolute ignorance. The intellectual separation 
of the sexes was made as complete as possible by the 
conventionally received idea that a man could not learn 
what girls learned without effeminacy, and that if 
women aspired to men's knowledge they would forfeit 



PART VII. 

LETTER 

III. 

Renewal of 

minds after 

marriage. 



Separation 

of the 

sexes in 

education. 



242 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

* LETTER 
III. 



Culture 

independent 
of sex. 



The Prince 
Consort 



the delicacy of their sex. This illogical prejudice was 
based on a bad syllogism of this kind : — 

Girls speak French, and learn music and drawing. 

Benjamin speaks French, and learns music and 
drawing. 

Benjamin is a girl. 
And the prejudice, powerful as it was, had not even the 
claim of any considerable antiquity. Think how strange 
and unreasonable it would have seemed to Lady Jane 
Grey and Sir Philip Sidney ! In their time, ladies and 
gentlemen studied the same things, the world of culture 
was the same for both, and they could meet in it as in 
a garden. 

Happily we are coming back to the old rational notion 
of culture as independent of the question of sex. Latin 
and Greek are not unfeminine; they were spoken by 
women in Athens and Rome ; the modern languages are 
fit for a man to learn, since men use them continually 
on the battle-fields and in the parliaments and exchanges 
of the world. Art is a manly business, if ever any human 
occupation could be called manly, for the utmost efforts 
of the strongest men are needed for success in it. 

The increasing interest in the fine arts, the more impor- 
tant position given to modern languages in the universi- 
ties, the irresistible attractions and growing authority ot 
science, all tend to bring men and women together on 
subjects understood by both, and therefore operate 
directly in favour of intellectual interests in marriage. 
You will not suspect me of a snobbish desire, to pay 
compliments to royalty if I trace some of these changes 
in public opinion to the example and influence of the 
Prince Consort, operating with some effect during his life, 
yet with far greater force since he was taken away from 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



243 



us. The truth is, that the most modern English ideal of 
gentlemanly culture is that which Prince Albert, to a 
great extent, realized in his own person. Perhaps his 
various accomplishments may be a little embellished or 
exaggerated in the popular belief, but it is unquestionable 
that his notion of culture was very large and liberal, and 
quite beyond the narrow pedantry of the preceding age. 
There was nothing in it to exclude a woman, and we 
know that she who loved him entered largely into the 
works and recreations of his life. 



LETTER IV. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE. 

Women do not of themselves undertake intellectual labour — Their 
resignation to ignorance — Absence of scientific curiosity in 
women — They do not accumulate accurate knowledge — Archi- 
medes in his bath — Rarity of inventions due to women — Ex- 
ceptions. 

Before saying much about the influence of marriage on 
the intellectual life, it is necessary to make some inquiry 
into the intellectual nature of women. 

The first thing to be noted is that, with exceptions so 
rare as to be practically of no importance to an argu- 
ment, women do not of themselves undertake intellec- 
tual labour. Even in the situations most favourable for 
labour of that kind, women do not undertake it unless 
they are urged to it, and directed in it, by some powerful 
masculine influence. In the absence of that influence, 
although their minds are active, that activity neither 
tends to discipline nor to the accumulation of know- 
ledge. Women who are not impelled by some masculine 

R 2 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
III. 

His notion 
0/ culture. 



LETTER 
IV. 



Women do 

not of 

the?nselves 

under ta ':e 

intellectual 

labour. 



244 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Resignation 
to ignorance. 



Absence of 
intellectual 
initiative. 



influence are not superior, either in knowledge or dis- 
cipline of the mind, at the age of fifty to what they 
were at the age of twenty-five. In other words, they 
have not in themselves the motive powers which can 
cause an intellectual advance. 

The best illustration of this is a sisterhood of three or 
four rich old maids, with all the advantages of leisure. 
You will observe that they invariably remain, as to their 
education, where they were left by their teachers many 
years before. They will often lament, perhaps, that in 
their day education was very inferior to what it is now ; 
but it never occurs to them that the large leisure of sub- 
sequent years might, had it been well employed, have 
supplied those deficiencies of which they are sensible. 
Nothing is more curiously remote from masculine habits 
than the resignation to particular degrees of ignorance, 
as to the inevitable, which a woman will express in a 
manner which says : " You know I am so ; you know 
that I cannot make myself better informed." They are 
like perfect billiard-balls on a perfect table, which stop 
when no longer impelled, wherever they may happen 
to be. 

It is this absence of intellectual initiative which causes 
the great ignorance of women. What they have been 
well taught, that they know, but they do not increase 
their stores of knowledge. Even in what most interests 
them, theology, they repeat, but do not extend, their 
information. All the effort of their minds appears (so 
far as an outside observer may presume to judge) to act 
like water on a picture, which brings out the colours that 
already exist upon the canvas but does not add anything 
to the design. There is a great and perpetual freshness 
and vividness in their conceptions, which is often lacking 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



2 45 



in our own. Our conceptions fade, and are replaced; 
• theirs are not replaced, but refreshed. 

What many women do for their theological concep- 
tions or opinions, others do with reference to the in- 
numerable series of questions of all kinds which present 
themselves in the course of life. They attempt to solve 
them by the help of knowledge acquired in girlhood; 
and if that cannot be done, they either give them up as 
beyond the domain of women, or else trust to hearsay 
for a solution. What they will not do is to hunt the 
matter out unaided, and get an accurate answer by dint 
of independent investigation. 

There is another characteristic of women, not peculiar 
to them, for many men have it in an astonishing degree, 
and yet more general in the female sex than in the male : 
I allude to the absence of scientific curiosity. Ladies 
see things of the greatest wonder and interest working in 
their presence and for their service without feeling im- 
pelled to make any inquiries into the manner of their 
working. I could mention many very curious instances 
of this, but I select one which seems typical. Many years 
ago I happened to be in a room filled with English ladies, 
most of whom were highly intelligent, and the conversa- 
tion happened to turn upon a sailing-boat which belonged 
to me. One of the ladies observed that sails were not of 
much use, since they could only be available to push the 
boat in the direction of the wind; a statement which all the 
other ladies received with approbation. Now, all these 
ladies had seen ships working under canvas against head- 
winds, and they might have reflected that without that por- 
tion of the art of seamanship every vessel unprovided with 
steam would assuredly drift upon a lee-shore ; but it was 
not in the feminine nature to make a scientific observa- 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



A bsence of 
scientific 
curiosity. 



A n example. 



246 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IV. 



A bsence of 

scientific 

curiosity 

extends 

to every-day 

things. 



Its conse- 
quences. 



tion of that kind. You will answer, perhaps, that I could 
scarcely expect ladies to investigate men's business, and 
that seamanship is essentially the business of our own 
sex. But the truth is, that all English people, no matter 
of what sex, have so direct an interest in the maritime 
activity of England, that they might reasonably be ex- 
pected to know the one primary conquest on which for 
many centuries that activity has depended, the conquest 
of the opposing wind, the sublimest of the early victories 
of science. And this absence of curiosity in women 
extends to things they use every day. They never seem 
to want to know the insides of things as we do. All 
ladies know that steam makes a locomotive go ; but 
they rest satisfied with that, and do not inquire further 
how the steam sets the wheels in motion. They know 
that it is necessary to wind up their watches, but they 
do not care to inquire into the real effects of that little 
exercise of force. 

Now this absence of the investigating spirit has very 
wide and important consequences. The first conse- 
quence of it is that women do not naturally accumulate 
accurate knowledge. Left to themselves, they accept 
various kinds of teaching, but they do not by any 
analysis of their own either put that teaching to any 
serious intellectual test, or qualify themselves for any 
extension of it by independent and original discovery. 
We of the male sex are seldom clearly aware how muc v 
of our practical force, of the force which discovers and 
originates, is due to our common habit of analytical 
observation ; yet it is scarcely too much to say that most 
of our inventions have been suggested by actually or 
intellectually pulling something else in pieces. And 
such of our discoveries as cannot be traced directly to 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



247 



analysis are almost always due to habits of general 
observation which lead us to take note of some fact 
apparently quite remote from what it helps us to arrive 
at. One of the best instances of this indirect utility of 
habitual observation, as it is one of the earliest, is what 
occurred to Archimedes in his bath. When the water 
displaced by his body overflowed, he noticed the fact of 
displacement, and at once perceived its applicability to 
the cubic measurement of complicated bodies. It is 
possible that if his mind had not been exercised at the 
time about the adulteration of the royal crown, it would 
not have been led to anything by the overflowing of his 
bath ; but the capacity to receive a suggestion of that 
kind is, I believe, a capacity exclusively masculine. A 
woman would have noticed the overflowing, but she 
would have noticed it only as a cause of disorder or 
inconvenience. 

This absence of the investigating and discovering 
tendencies in women is .confirmed by the extreme rarity 
of inventions due to women, even in the things which 
most interest and concern them. The stocking-loom 
and the sewing-machine are the two inventions which 
would most naturally have been hit upon by women, 
for people are naturally inventive about things which 
relieve themselves of labour, or which increase their 
own possibilities of production; and yet the stocking- 
loom and the sewing-machine are both of them mascu- 
line ideas, carried out to practical efficiency by masculine 
energy and perseverance. So I believe that all the 
improvements in pianos are due to men, though 
women have used pianos much more than men have 
used them. 



PART VII. 

LETTEK 



Masculine 
capacity for 

rt'ceivifig' 
suggestions. 



Rarity of 

inventions 

due to 

women* 



248 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Cultivated 

women 
encouraged 

by 
masctdine 
influence. 



Exceptional 
women. 



This, then, is in my view the most important negative 
characteristic of women, that they do not push forwards 
intellectually by their own force. There have been a few 
instances in which they have written with power and 
originality, have become learned, and greatly superior, no 
doubt, to the majority of men. There are three or four 
women in England, and as many on the Continent, who 
have lived intellectually in harness for many years, and 
who unaffectedly delight in strenuous intellectual labour, 
giving evidence both of fine natural powers and the most 
persevering culture ; but these women have usually been 
encouraged in their work by some near masculine influ- 
ence. And even if it were possible, which it is not, to 
point to some female Archimedes or Leonardo da Vinci, 
it is not the rare exceptions which concern us, but the 
prevalent rule of Nature. Without desiring to compare 
our most learned ladies with anything so disagreeable to 
the eye as a bearded woman, I may observe that Nature 
generally has a few exceptions to all her rules, and that 
as women having beards are a physical exception, so 
women who naturally study and investigate are intel- 
lectual exceptions. Once more let me repudiate any 
malicious intention in establishing so unfortunate and 
maladroiie an association of ideas, for nothing is less 
agreeable than a woman with a beard, whilst, on the con- 
trary, the most intellectual of women may at the same 
time be the most permanently charming. 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



249 



LETTER V. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE. 

The danger of deviation — Danger from increased expenditure — 
Nowhere so great as in England — Complete absorption in 
business — Case of a tradesman — Case of a solicitor — The 
pursuit of comfort dangerous to the Intellectual Life— The 
meanness of its results— Fireside purposes— Danger of deviation 
in rich marriages— George Sand's study of this in her story 
of " Valvcdre." 

Amongst the clangers of marriage, one of those most to 
be dreaded by a man given to intellectual pursuits is the 
deviation which, in one way or other, marriage inevi- 
tably produces. It acts like the pointsman on a railway, 
who, by pulling a lever, sends the train in another direc- 
tion. The married man never goes, or hardly ever goes, 
exactly on the same intellectual lines which he would 
have followed if he had remained a bachelor. This de- 
viation may or may not be a gain ; it is always a most 
serious danger. 

Sometimes the deviation is produced by the necessity 
for a stricter attention to money, causing a more unre- 
mitting application to work that pays well, and a propor- 
tionate neglect of that which can only give extension to 
our knowledge and clearness to our views. 

In no country is this danger so great as it is in Eng- 
land, where the generally expensive manner of living, and 
the prevalent desire to keep families in an ideally perfect 
state of physical comfort, produce an absorption in busi- 
ness which in all but the rarest instances leaves no margin 
for intellectual labour. There are, no doubt, some re- 
markable examples of men earning a large income by a 



part vn. 

I.KT I M< 



Deviation 

resulting 

from 

marriage. 



Sometimes 
caused />y 
/c( uniary 
considcra- 
tio?is- 



250 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



Case of an 

English 
tradesman. 



Case of a 
solicitor. 



laborious profession, who have gained reputation in one 
of the sciences or in some branch of literature, but these 
are very exceptional cases. A man who works at his 
profession as most Englishmen with large families have 
to work, can seldom enjoy that surplus of nervous energy 
which would be necessary to carry him far in literature 
or science. I remember meeting an English tradesman 
in the railway between Paris and the coast, who told me 
that he was obliged to visit France very frequently, yet 
could not speak French, which was a great deficiency 
and inconvenience to him. " Why not learn?" I asked, 
and received the following answer : — 

" I have to work at my business all day long, and often 
far into the night. When the day's work is over I gene- 
rally feel very tired, and want rest ; but if I don't happen 
to feel quite so tired, then it is not work that I need, but 
recreation, of which I get very little. I never feel the 
courage to set to work at the French grammar, though it 
would be both pleasant and useful to me to know French ; 
indeed, I constantly feel the want of it. It might, per- 
haps, be possible to learn from a phrase-book in the rail- 
way train, but to save time I always travel at night. 
Being a married man, I have to give my whole attention 
to my business." 

A solicitor with a large practice in London held nearly 
the same language. He worked at his office all day, and 
often brought home the most difficult work for the quiet 
of his own private study after the household had gone 
to bed. The little reading that he could indulge in was 
light reading. In reality the profession intruded even on 
his few hours of leisure, for he read many of the columns 
in the Times which relate to law or legislation, and these 
make at the end of a few years an amount of reading 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



251 



sufficient for the mastery of a foreign literature. This 
gentleman answered very accurately to M. Taine's descrip- 
tion of the typical Englishman, absorbed in business and 
the Times. 

In these cases it is likely that the effect of marriage 
was not inwardlv felt as a deviation * but when culture 
has been fairly begun, and marriage hinders the pursuit 
of it, or makes it deviate from the chosen path, then 
there is often an inward consciousness of the fact, not 
without its bitterness. 

A remarkable article on " Luxury," in the second 
volume of the Cornhill Magazine, deals with this sub- 
ject in a manner evidently suggested by serious reflection 
and experience. The writer considers the effects of the 
pursuit of comfort (never carried so far as it is now) on 
the higher moral and intellectual life. The comforts of 
a bachelor were not what the writer meant; these are 
easily procured, and seldom require the devotion of all 
the energies. The " comfort " which is really dangerous 
to intellectual growth is that of a family establishment, 
because it so easily becomes the one absorbing object of 
existence. Men who began life with the feeling that they 
would willingly devote their powers to great purposes, 
like the noble examples of past times who laboured and 
suffered for the intellectual advancement of their race, 
and had starvation for their reward, or in some cases 
even the prison and the stake — men who in their youth 
felt themselves to be heirs of a nobility of spirit like that 
of Bruno, of Swammerdam, of Spinoza, have too often 
found themselves in the noon of life concentrating all 
the energies of body and soul on the acquisition of ugly 
millinery and uglier upholstery, and on spreading extra- 
vagant tables to feed uncultivated guests 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



Inward 

conscious- 
ness of 
deviation. 



Effects of 
the fin rsuit 

of comfort. 



252 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



What me?i 

•were 

intended to 

know and 

do. 



Idolatry of 
domestic 
happiness. 



Men do 

lower work 

than they 

might have 

done. 



" It is impossible," says the writer of the article just 
alluded to, " it is impossible to say why men were made, 
but assuming that they were made for some purpose, of 
which the faculties which they possess afford evidence, it 
follows that they were intended to do many other things 
besides providing for their families and enjoying their 
society. They were meant to know, to act, and to feel 
— to know everything which the mind is able to con- 
template, to name, and to classify ; to do eveiything 
which the will, prompted by the passions and guided by 
the conscience, can undertake ; and, subject to the same 
guidance, to feel in its utmost vigour every emotion which 
the contemplation of the various persons and objects 
which surround us can excite. This view of the objects 
of life affords an almost infinite scope for human activity 
in different directions ; but it also shows that it is in the 
highest degree dangerous to its beauty and its worth to 
allow any one side of life to become the object of 
idolatry ; and there are many reasons for thinking that 
domestic happiness is rapidly assuming that position in 
the minds of the more comfortable classes of English- 
men. ... It is a singular and affecting thing, to see how 
every manifestation of human energy bears witness to 
the shrewdness of the current maxim that a large income 
is a necessary of life. Whatever is done for money is 
done admirably well. Give a man a specific thing to 
make or to write, and pay him well for it, and you may 
with a little trouble secure an excellent article ; but the 
ability which does these things so well, might have been 
and ought to have been trained to far^ higher things, 
which for the most part are left undone, because the 
clever workman thinks himself bound to earn what will 
keep himself, his wife, and his six or seven children, up 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



253 



to the established standard of comfort. What was at 
first a necessity, perhaps an unwelcome one, becomes 
by degrees a habit and a pleasure, and men who might 
have done memorable and noble things, if they had 
learnt in time to consider the doing of such things an 
object worth living for, lose the power and the wish to 
live for other than fireside purposes/' 

But this kind of intellectual deviation, you may 
answer, is not strictly the consequence of marriage, qua 
marriage ; it is one of the consequences of a degree 
of relative poverty, produced by the larger expenditure 
of married life, but which might be just as easily pro- 
duced by a certain degree of money-pressure in the con- 
dition of a bachelor. Let me therefore point out a kind 
of deviation which may be as frequently observed in rich 
marriages as in poor ones. Suppose the case of a 
bachelor with a small but perfectly independent income 
amounting to some hundreds a year, who is devoted to 
intellectual pursuits, and spends his time in study or with 
cultivated friends of his own, choosing friends whose 
society is an encouragement and a help. Suppose that 
this man makes an exceedingly prudent marriage, with 
a rich woman, you may safely predict, in this instance, 
intellectual deviations of a kind perilous to the highest 
culture. He will have new calls upon his time, his 
society will no longer be entirely of his own choosing, he 
will no longer be able to devote himself with absolute 
singleness of purpose to studies from which his wife 
must necessarily be excluded. If he were to continue 
faithful to his old habits, and shut himself up every day 
in his library or laboratory, or set out on frequent 
scientific expeditions, his wife would either be a lady of 
quite extraordinary perfection of temper, or else entirely 



part vix 

LETTER 



Deviation 
in rich 

marriages. 



New calls 
on time. 



254 



TL E INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
V. 

Loss of time 

after 

marriage- 



Valvedre 
and his wife- 



indifferent in her feelings towards him, if she did not 
regard his pursuits with quickly-increasing jealousy. She 
would think, and justifiably think, that he ought to give 
more of his time to the enjoyment of her society, that he 
ought to be more, by her side in the carriage and in the 
drawing-room, and if he loved her he would yield to 
these kindly and reasonable wishes. He would spend 
many hours of every day in a manner not profitable to 
his great pursuits, and many weeks of every year in visits 
to her friends. His position would be even less favour- 
able to study in some respects than that of a professional 
man. It would be difficult for him, if an amateur artist, 
to give that unremitting attention to painting which the 
professional painter gives. He could not say, " I do this 
for you and for our children ;" he could only say, " I do 
it for my own pleasure," which is not so graceful an 
excuse. As a bachelor, he might work as professional 
people work, but his marriage would strongly accentuate 
the amateur character of his position. It is possible 
that if his labours had won great fame the lady might 
bear the separation more easily, for ladies always take 
a noble pride in the celebrity of their husbands ; but the 
best and worthiest intellectual labour often brings no 
fame whatever, and notoriety is a mere accident of 
some departments of the intellectual life, and not its 
ultimate object. 

George Sand, in her admirable novel " Valvedre," has 
depicted a situation of this kind with the most careful 
delicacy of touch. Valvedre was a man of science, who 
attempted to continue the labours of his intellectual life 
after marriage had united him to a lady incapable of 
sharing them. The reader pities both, and sympathises 
with both. It is hard, on the one hand, that a map 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



255 



endowed by nature with great talents for scientific work 
should not go on with a career already gloriously 
begun ; and yet, on the other hand, a woman who is so 
frequently abandoned for science may blamelessly feel 
some jealousy of science. 

Valvedre, in narrating the story of his unhappy wedded 
life, said that Alida wished to have at her orders a 
perfect gentleman to accompany her, but that he felt in 
himself a more serious ambition. He had not aimed at 
fame, but he had thought it possible to become a useful 
servant, bringing his share of patient and courageous 
seekings to the edifice of the sciences. He had hoped 
that Alida would understand this. " 'There is time enough 
for everything,' she said, still retaining him in the useless 
wandering life that she had chosen. ' Perhaps,' he 
answered, ' but on condition that I lose no more of it ; 
and it is not in this wandering life, cut to pieces by a 
thousand unforeseen interruptions, that I can make the 
hours yield their profit.' 

" ' Ah ! we come to the point ! ' exclaimed Alida im- 
petuously. ' You wish to leave me, and to travel alone 
in impossible regions.' 

" * No, I will work near you and abandon certain ob- 
servations which it would be necessary to make at too 
great a distance, but you also will sacrifice something : 
we will not see so many idle people, we will settle some- 
where for a fixed time. It shall be where you will, and 
if the place does not suit you, we will try another ; but 
from time to time you will permit me a phase of seden- 
tary work.' 

" ' Yes, yes, you want to live for yourself alone ; you 
have lived enough for me. I understand ; your love is 
satiated and at an end. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
V. 



256 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



Valvbdre 
and his wife. 



" Nothing could conquer her conviction that study was 
her rival, and that love was only possible in idleness. 

" 'To love is everything,' she said; 'and he who loves, 
has not time to concern himself with anything else. 
Whilst the husband is intoxicating himself with the 
marvels of science, the wife languishes and dies. It is 
the destiny which awaits me; and since I am a burden 
to you, I should do better to die at once.' 

" A little later Valvedre ventured to hint something 
about work, hoping to conquer his wife's ennui, on which 
she proclaimed the hatred of work as a sacred right of 
her nature and position. 

" ( Nobody ever taught me to work,' she said, ' and I 
did not marry under a promise to begin again at the a y b, 
c of things. Whatever I know I have learned by intui- 
tion, by reading without aim or method. I am a woman; 
my destiny is to love my husband and bring up 
children. It is very strange that my husband should 
be the person who counsels me to think of something 
better.' " 

I am far from suggesting that Madame Valvedre is an 
exact representative of her sex, but the sentiments which 
in her are exaggerated, and expressed with passionate 
plainness, are in much milder form very prevalent senti- 
ments indeed; and Valvedre's great difficulty, how to get 
leave to prosecute his studies with the degree of devotion 
necessary to make them fruitful, is not at all an uncommon 
difficulty with intellectual men after marriage. The cha- 
racter of Madame Valvedre, being passionate and exces- 
sive, led her to an open expression of her feelings; but 
feelings of a like kind, though milder in degree, exist fre 
quently below the surface, and may be detected by any 
vigilant observer of human nature. That such feelings 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



257 



are very natural it is impossible even for a savant to 
deny ; but whilst admitting the clear right of a woman 
to be preferred by a man to science when once he has 
married her, let me observe that the man might perhaps 
do wisely, before the knot is tied, to ascertain whether 
her intellectual dowry is rich enough to compensate 
him for the sacrifices she is likely to exact. 



LETTER VI. 



TO A SOLITARY STUDENT. 



Need of a near intellectual friendship in solitude — Persons who 
live independently of custom run a peculiar risk in marriage — 
Women by nature more subservient to custom than men are — 
Difficulty of conciliating solitude and marriage — De Senan- 
cour — The marriages of eccentrics — Their wives either protect 
them or attempt to reform them. 

Isolated as you are, by the very superiority of your 
culture, from the ignorant provincial world around you, 
I cannot but believe that marriage is essential to your 
intellectual health and welfare. If you married some 
cultivated woman, bred in the cultivated society of a 
great capital, that companionship would give you an 
independence of surrounding influences which nothing 
else can give. You fancy that by shutting yourself up 
in a country house you are uninfluenced by the world 
around you. It is a great error. You know that you 
are isolated, that you are looked upon and probably 
ridiculed as an eccentric, and this knowledge, which it 
is impossible to banish from your mind, deprives your 
thinking of elasticity and grace. You urgently need the 
support of an intellectual friendship quite near to you, 

s 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



LETTER 
VI. 



Value of a 
cultivated 

wife. 



Evil of 
isolation. 



258 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Danger of 
marriage 

for 
eccentrics. 



Value of 
solitude. 



De 

Scnancour. 



under your own roof. Bachelors in great cities feel this 
necessity less. 

Still remember, that whoever has arranged his life 
independently of custom runs a peculiar risk in mar- 
riage. Women are by nature far more subservient to 
custom than we are, more than we can easily conceive. 
The danger of marriage, for a person of your tastes, is 
that a woman entering your house might enter it as the 
representative of that minutely-interfering authority which 
you continually ignore. And let us never forget that a 
perfect obedience to custom requires great sacrifices of 
time and money that you might not be disposed to 
make, and which certainly would interfere with study. 
You value and enjoy your solitude, well knowing how 
great a thing it is to be master of all your hours. It is 
difficult to conciliate solitude, or even a wise and suit- 
able selection of acquaintances, with the semi-publicity 
of marriage. Heads of families receive many persons 
in their houses whom they would never have invited, 
and from whose society they derive little pleasure and 
no profit. De Senancour had plans of studious retire- 
ment, and hoped that the "douce intimitf" of marriage 
might be compatible with these cherished projects. But 
marriage, he found, drew him into the circle of ordi- 
nary provincial life, and he always suffered from its 
influences. 

You are necessarily an eccentric. In the neighbour- 
hood where you live it is an eccentricity to study, for 
nobody but you studies anything. A man so situated is 
fortunate when this feeling of eccentricity is alleviated, 
and unfortunate when it is increased. A wife would 
certainly do one or the other. Married to a very superior 
woman, able to understand the devotion to intellectual 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



2<;o 



aims, you would be much relieved of the painful con- 
sciousness of eccentricity , but a woman of less capacity 
would intensify it. 

So far as we can observe the married life of others, it 
seems to me that I have met with instances of men, con- 
stituted and occupied very much as you are, who have 
found in marriage a strong protection against the igno- 
rant judgments of their neighbours, and an assurance of 
intellectual peace ; whilst in other cases it has appeared 
rather as if their solitude were made more a cause of 
conscious suffering, as if the walls of their cabinets were 
pulled down for the boobies outside to stare at them 
and laugh at them. A woman will either take your side 
against the customs of the little world around, or she 
will take the side of custom against you. If she loves 
you deeply, and if there is some visible result of your 
labours in fame and money, she may possibly do the 
first, and then she will protect your tranquillity better 
than a force of policemen, and give you a delightful 
sense of reconciliation with all humanity ; but many of 
her most powerful instincts tend the other way. She 
has a natural sympathy with all the observances of 
custom, and you neglect them; she is fitted for social 
life, which you are not. Unless you win her wholly to 
your side, she may undertake the enterprise of curing 
your eccentricities and adapting you to the ideal of her 
caste. This may be highly satisfactory to the operator, 
but it is full of inconveniences to the patient. 



PART vn. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Protection 
mxrriage. 



Curing 
eccentrici- 
ties. 



6 8 



260 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII 

LETTER 
VII. 



Deficiencies 

in female 

society. 



LETTER VII. 

TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE WHO FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO 
ASSOCIATE WITH PERSONS OF HER OWN SEX. 

Men are not very good judges of feminine conversation — The 
interest of it would be increased if women could be more freely 
initiated into great subjects — Small subjects interesting when 
seen in relation to central ideas — That ladies of superior faculty 
ought rather to elevate female society than withdraw from 
it — Women when displaced do not appear happy. 

What you confided to me in our last interesting conver- 
sation has given me material for reflection, and afforded 
a glimpse of a state of things which I have sometimes 
suspected without having data for any positive conclu- 
sion. The society of women is usually sought by men 
during hours of mental relaxation, and we naturally find 
such a charm in their mere presence, especially when 
they are graceful or beautiful, that we are not very severe 
or even accurate judges of the abstract intellectual 
quality of their talk. But a woman cannot feel the 
indescribable charm which wins us so easily, and I have 
sometimes thought that a superior person of your sex 
might be aware of certain deficiencies in her sisters which 
men very readily overlook. You tell me that you feel 
embarrassed in the society of ladies, because they know 
so little about the subjects which interest you, and are 
astonished when you speak about anything really worth 
attention. On the other hand, you feel perfectly at ease 
with men of ability and culture, and most at your ease 
with men of the best ability and the most eminent attain- 
ments. What you complain of chiefly in women seems 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



261 



to be their impatience of varieties of thought which are 
unfamiliar to them, and their constant preference for 
small topics. 

It has long been felt by men that if women could be 
more freely initiated into great subjects the interest of 
general conversation would be much increased. The 
difficulty appears to lie in their instinctive habit of making 
all questions personal questions. The etiquette of society 
makes it quite impossible for men to speak to ladies in 
the manner which would be intellectually most profitable 
to them. We may not teach because it is pedantic, and 
we may not contradict, because it is rude. Most of the 
great subjects are conventionally held to be closed, so 
that it is a sin against good taste to discuss them. In 
every house the ladies have a set of fixed convictions of 
some kind, which it is not polite in any man to appear to 
doubt. The consequence of these conventional rules 
is that women live in an atmosphere of acquiescence 
which makes them intolerant of anything like bold and 
original thinking on important subjects. But as the 
mind always requires free play of some kind, when all 
the great subjects are forbidden it will use its activity 
in playing about little ones. 

For my part I hardly think it desirable for any of us to 
be incessantly coping with great subjects, and the ladies 
are right in taking a lively interest in the small events 
around them. But even the small events would have a 
deeper interest if they were seen in their true relations to 
the great currents of European thought and action. It 
is probably the ignorance of these relations which, more 
than the smallness of the topics themselves, makes femi- 
nine talk fatiguing to you. Very small things indeed 
have an interest when exhibited in relation to larger, as 



PART VII 

LETTER 
VII. 



Etiquette 
unfavour- 
able to 
•women- 



Closed 
subjects. 



Interest in 
small 
events. 



262 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
VII. 

What gives 

interest 
to conversa- 
tion- 



The tone of 

conversation 

may be 

raised. 



men of science are continually demonstrating. I have 
been taking note lately of the talk that goes on around 
me, and I find that when it is shallow and wearisome it 
is always because the facts mentioned bear no reference 
to any central or governing idea, and do not illustrate 
anything. Conversation is interesting in proportion to 
the originality of the central ideas which serve as pivots, 
and the fitness of the little facts and observations which 
are contributed by the talkers. For instance, if people 
happened to be talking about rats, and some one in- 
formed you that he had seen a rat last week, that would 
be quite uninteresting ; but you would listen with greater 
attention if he said : " The other night, as I was going 
upstairs very late, I followed a very fine rat who was 
going upstairs too, and he was not in the least hurried, 
but stopped after every two or three steps to have a 
look at me and my candle. He was very prettily 
marked about the face and tail, so I concluded that he 
was not a common rat, but probably a lemming. Two 
nights afterwards I met him again, and this time he 
seemed almost to know me, for he quietly made room 
for me as I passed. Very likely he might be easily 
tamed." This is interesting, because, though the fact 
narrated is still trifling, it illustrates animal character. 

If you will kindly pardon an " improvement " of this 
subject, as a preacher would call it, I might add that an 
intellectual lady like yourself might, perhaps, do better 
to raise the tone of the feminine talk around her than 
to withdraw from it in weariness. There are always, in 
every circle, a few superior persons who, either from 
natural diffidence, or because they are not very rich, 
or because they are too young, suffer themselves to 
be entirely overwhelmed by the established mediocrity 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



26' 



around them. What they need is a leader, a deliverer. 
Is it not in your power to render services of this kind ? 
Could you not select from the younger ladies whom you 
habitually meet, a few who, like yourself, feel bored by 
the dulness or triviality of what you describe as the 
current feminine conversation ? There is often a painful 
shyness which prevents people of real ability from using 
it for the advantage of others, and this shyness is nowhere 
so common as in England, especially provincial England. 
It feels the want of a hardy example. A lady who talked 
really well would no doubt run some risk of being rather 
unpleasantly isolated at first, but surely, if she tried, she 
might ultimately find accomplices. You could do much, 
to begin with, by recommending high-toned literature, 
and gradually awakening an interest in what is truly 
worth attention. It seems lamentable that every culti- 
vated woman should be forced out of the society of her 
own sex, and made to depend upon ours for conversation 
of that kind which is an absolute necessity to the intel- 
lectual. The truth is, that women so displaced never 
appear altogether happy. And culture costs so much 
downright hard work, that it ought not to be paid for by 
any suffering beyond those toils which are its fair and 
natural price. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Shyness of 
able people- 



Need of a 
hardy 

example. 



Displaced 
women. 



264 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII, 

LETTER 
VIII. 



What men 

say to 
women 



How men 
address 
women. 



LETTER VIII. 

TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE. 

Greatest misfortune in the intellectual life of women — They do 
not hear truth — Men disguise their thoughts for women — Cream 
and curacoa — Probable permanence of the desire to please 
women — Most truth in cultivated society — Hopes from the 
increase of culture. 

I think that the greatest misfortune in the intellectual 
life of women is that they do not hear the truth from 
men. 

All men in cultivated society say to women as much 
as possible that which they may be supposed to wish to 
hear, and women are so much accustomed to this that 
they can scarcely hear without resentment an expression 
of opinion which takes no account of their personal and 
private feeling. The consideration for the feelings of 
women gives an agreeable tone to society, but it is fatal ' 
to the severity of truth. Observe a man of the world 
whose opinions are well known to you, — notice the little 
pause before he speaks to a lady. During that little 
pause he is turning over what he has to say, so as to 
present it in the manner that will please her best ; and 
you may be sure that the integrity of truth will suffer in 
the process. If we compare what we know of the man 
with that which the lady hears from him, we perceive the 
immense disadvantages of her position. He ascertains 
what will please her, and that is what he administers. 
He professes to take a deep interest in things which he 
does not care for in the least, and he passes lightly over 
subjects and events which he knows to be of the most 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



265 



momentous importance to the world. The lady spends 
an hour more agreeably than if she heard opinions which 
would irritate, and prognostics which would alarm her, 
but she has missed an opportunity for culture, she has 
been confirmed in feminine illusions. If this happened 
only from time to time, the effect would not tell so much 
on the mental constitution ; but it is incessant, it is con- 
tinual. Men disguise their thoughts for women as if to 
venture into the feminine world were as dangerous 
as travelling in Arabia, or as if the thoughts themselves 
were criminal. 

There appeared two or three years ago in Punch a 
clever drawing which might have served as an illustration 
to this subject. A fashionable doctor was visiting a lady 
in Belgravia who complained that she suffered from 
debility. Cod-liver oil being repugnant to her taste, the 
agreeable doctor, wise in his generation, blandly suggested 
as an effective substitute a mixture of cream and curacoa. 
What that intelligent man did for his patient's physical 
constitution, all men of politeness do for the intellectual 
constitution of ladies. Instead of administering the 
truth which would strengthen, though unpalatable, they 
administer intellectual cream and curagoa. 

The primaiy cause of this tendency to say what is 
most pleasing to women is likely to be as permanent as 
the distinction of sex itself. It springs directly from 
sexual feelings, it is hereditary and instinctive. Men 
will never talk to women with that rough frankness 
which they use between themselves. Conversation be- 
tween the sexes will always be partially insincere. Still I 
think that the more women are respected, the more men 
will desire to be approved by them for what they are in 
reality, and the less they will care for approval which 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Men dis- 
guise their 

thoughts 
for ivomen. 



Cream a;/d 
curaroa. 



Sexual 
feeling. 



266 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Good effects 
of high 
culture. 



Hofesjor 
the future. 



is obtained by dissimulation. It may be observed 
already that, in the most intellectual society of great 
capitals, men are considerably more outspoken before 
women than they are in the provincial middle-classes. 
Where women have most culture, men are most open 
and sincere. Indeed, the highest culture has a direct 
tendency to command sincerity in others, both because 
it is tolerant of variety in opinion, and because it 
is so penetrating that dissimulation is felt to be of no 
use. By the side of an uncultivated woman, a man feels 
that if he saps anything different from what she has been 
accustomed to she will take offence, whilst if he says 
anything beyond the narrow range of her information 
he will make her cold and uncomfortable. The most 
honest of men, in such a position, finds it necessary to 
be very cautious, and can scarcely avoid a little insin- 
cerity. But with a woman of culture equal to his own, 
these causes for apprehension have no existence, and he 
can safely be more himself. 

These considerations lead me to hope that as culture 
becomes more general women will hear truth more 
frequently. Whenever this comes to pass, it will be, to 
them, an immense intellectual gain. 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



267 



LETTER IX. 

TO A YOUNG MAN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, WELL EDU- 
CATED, WHO COMPLAINED THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR 
HIM TO LIVE AGREEABLY WITH HIS MOTHER, A PERSON OF 
SOMEWHAT AUTHORITATIVE DISPOSITION, BUT UNEDUCATED. 

A sort of misunderstanding common in modern households — 
Intolerance of inaccuracy — A false position — A lady not easily 
intimidated — Difficulty of arguing when you have to teach 
— Instance about the American War — The best cqurse in 
discussion with ladies — Women spoilt by non-contradiction — 
They make all questions personal — The strength of their 
feelings — Their indifference to matters of fact 

I have been thinking a good deal, and seriously, since 
we last met, about the subject of our conversation, 
which though a painful one is not to be timidly avoided. 
The degree of unhappiness in your little household, 
which ought to be one of the pleasantest of households, 
yet which, as you confided to me, is overshadowed by 
a continual misunderstanding, is, I fear, very common 
indeed at the present day. It is only by great forbear- 
ance, and great skill, that any household in which persons 
of very different degrees of culture have to live together 
on terms of equality, can be maintained in perfect peace ; 
and neither the art nor the forbearance is naturally an 
attribute of youth. A man whose scholarly attainments 
were equal to your own, and whose experience of men 
and women was wider, could no doubt offer you counsel 
both wise and practical, yet I can hardly say that I should 
like you better if you followed it. I cannot blame you 
for having the natural characteristics of your years, an 
honest love of the best truth that you have attained to, I 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Unhappijiess 
in certain 
households. 



Character- 
istics 0/ 
youth. 



263 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IX. 



A false 
position. 



A talkative 
lady. 



an intolerance of inaccuracy on all subjects, a simple 
faith in the possibility of teaching others, even elderly 
ladies, when they happen to know less than yourself. All 
these characteristics are in themselves blameless ; and 
yet in your case, and in thousands of other similar cases, 
they often bring clouds of storm and trial upon houses 
which, in a less rapidly progressive century than our 
own, might have been blessed with uninterrupted peace. 
The truth is, that you are in a false position relatively to 
your mother, and your mother is in a false position rela- 
tively to you. She expects deference, and deference is 
scarcely compatible with contradiction ; certainly, if there 
be contradiction at all, it must be very rare, very careful, 
and very delicate. You, on the other hand, although no 
doubt full of respect and affection for your mother in 
your heart, cannot hear her authoritatively enunciating 
anything that you know to be erroneous, without feeling 
irresistibly urged to set her right. She is rather a talka- 
tive lady ; she does not like to hear a conversation going 
forward without taking a part in it, and rather an impor- 
tant part, so that whatever subject is talked about in her 
presence, that subject she will talk about also. Even 
before specialists your mother has an independence of 
opinion, and a degree of faith in her own conclusions, 
which would be admirable if they were founded upon 
right reason and a careful study of the subject. Medical 
men, and even lawyers, do not intimidate her ; she is 
convinced that she knows more about disease than the 
physician, and more about legal business than an old 
attorney. In theology no parson can approach her ; but 
here a woman may consider herself on her own ground, 
as theology is the speciality of women. 

All this puts you out of patience, and it is intelligible 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



209 



that, for a young gentleman of intellectual habits and 
somewhat ardent temperament like yourself, it must be 
at times rather trying to have an Authority at hand 
ever ready to settle all questions in a decisive manner. 
To you I have no counsel to offer but that of uncon- 
ditional submission. You have the weakness to enter 
into arguments when to sustain them you must assume 
the part of a teacher. In arguing with a person already 
well-informed upon the subject in dispute, you may 
politely refer to knowledge which he already possesses. 
but when he does not possess the knowledge you cannot 
argue with him ; you must first teach him, you must 
become didactic, and therefore odious. I remember a 
great scene which took place between you and your 
mother concerning the American War. It was brought 
on by a too precise answer of yours relatively to your 
friend B., who had emigrated to America. Your mother 
asked to what part of America B. had emigrated, and 
you answered, " The Argentine Republic." A shade of 
displeasure clouded your mother's countenance, because 
she did not know where the Argentine Republic might 
be, and betrayed it by her manner. You imprudently 
added that it was in South America. " Yes, yes, I know 
very well," she answered ; " there was a great battle there 
during the American War. It is well your friend was not 
there under Jefferson Davis." Now, permit me to ob- 
serve, my estimable young friend, that this was what the 
French call a fine opportunity for holding your tongue, 
but you missed it. Fired with an enthusiasm for truth 
(always dangerous to the peace of families), you began 
to explain to the good lady that the Argentine Republic, 
though in South America, was not one of the Southern 
States of the Union. This led to a scene of which I 



PART 

LETTER 

IX. 



vir. 



Impossi- 
bility 0/ 
arguing 
iviih the 
ignorant. 



A family 
scene. 



270 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 



A 

discuss ion- 



The best 

course in 

discussion 

with ladies. 



was the embarrassed and unwilling witness. Your mothei 
vehemently affirmed that all the Southern States had been 
under Jefferson Davis, that she knew the fact perfectly, 
that it had always been known to everyone during the 
war, and that, consequently, as the Argentine Republic 
was in South America, the Argentine Republic had been 
under Jefferson Davis. Rapidly warming with this dis- 
cussion, your mother " supposed that you would deny 
next that there had ever been such a thing as a war be- 
tween the North and the South." Then you, in your 
turn, lost temper, and you fetched an atlas for the pur- 
pose of explaining that the Southern division of the con- 
tinent of America was not the Southern half of the 
United States. You were landed, as people always are 
landed when they prosecute an argument with the igno- 
rant, in the thankless office of the schoolmaster. You 
were actually trying to give your mother a lesson in geo- 
graphy ! She was not grateful to you for your didactic 
attentions. She glanced at the book as people glance at 
an offered dish which they dislike. She does not under- 
stand maps ; the representation of places in geographical 
topography has never been quite clear to her. Your 
little geographical lecture irritated, but did not inform ; it 
clouded the countenance, but did not illuminate the un- 
derstanding. The distinction between South America 
and the Southern States is not easy to Jhe non-analytic 
mind under any circumstances, but when amour propre is 
involved it becomes impossible. 

I believe that the best course in discussions of this 
kind with ladies is simply to say once\\\\2X is true, for the 
acquittal of your own conscience, but after that to remain 
silent on that topic, leaving the last word to the lady, 
who will probably simply re-affirm what she has already 



WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. 



271 



said. For example, in the discussion about the Argen- 
tine Republic, your proper course would have been 
to say first, firmly, that the territory in question was not 
a part of the seceded States and had never been in the 
Union, with a brief and decided geographical explana- 
tion. Your mother would not have been convinced by 
this, and would probably have had the last word, but the 
matter would have ended there. Another friend of mine, 
who is in a position very like your own, goes a step 
farther, and is determined to agree with his mother-in- 
law in everything. He always assents to her proposi- 
tions. She is a Frenchwoman, and has been accustomed 
to use Algh-ie and Afrique as convertible terms. Some- 
body spoke of the Cape of Good Hope as being in 
Africa. " Then it belongs to France, as Africa be- 
longs to France." M Oui, chere mere," he answered, in 
his usual formula ; " vous avez raison." 

He alluded to this afterwards when we were alone 
together. " I was foolish enough some years since," he 
said, " to argue with my belle mere and try to teach her 
little things from time to time, but it kept her in a state 
of chronic ill-humour and led to no good ; it spoiled her 
temper, and it did not improve her mind. But since I 
have adopted the plan of perpetual assent we get on 
charmingly. Whatever she affirms I assent to at once, 
and all is well. My friends are in the secret, and so no 
contradictory truth disturbs our amiable tranquillity." 

A system of this kind spoils women completely, and 
makes the least contradiction intolerable to them. It is 
better that they should at least have the opportunity of 
hearing truth, though no attempt need be made to force 
it upon them. The position of ladies of the generation 
which preceded ours is in many respects a veiy trying 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Resolution 
to agree* 



Per/>etual 
assent. 



That it 

s/>oils 

women. 



272 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART VII. 

LETTER 
IX. 



That women 
make all 
questions 
personal 
questions. 



one, and we do not always adequately realize it. A 
lady like your mother, who never really went through 
any intellectual discipline, who has no notion of intel- 
lectual accuracy in anything, is compelled by the irre- 
sistible feminine instinct to engage her strongest feelings 
in every discussion that arises. A woman can rarely 
detach her mind from questions of persons to apply it to 
questions of fact. She does not think simply, " Is that 
true of such a thing ? " but she thinks, " Does he love 
me or respect me?" The facts about the Argentine 
Republic and the American War were probably quite 
indifferent to your mother ; but your opposition to what 
she had asserted seemed to her a failure in affection, and 
your attempt to teach her a failure in respect. This 
feeling in women is far from being wholly egoistic. They 
refer everything to persons, but not necessarily to their 
own persons. Whatever you affirm as a fact, they find 
means of interpreting as loyalty or disloyalty to some 
person whom they either venerate or love, to the head of 
religion, or of the State, or of the family. Hence it is 
always dangerous to enter upon intellectual discussion of 
any kind with women, for you are almost certain to 
offend them by setting aside the sentiments of veneration, 
affection, love, which they have in great strength, in 
order to reach accuracy in matters of fact, which they 
neither have nor care for. 



PART VIII. 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



LETTER I. 



TO A YOUNG ENGLISH NOBLEMAN. 

A contrast — A poor student — His sad fate — Class-sentiment — 
Tycho Brahe — Robert Barns — Shelley's opinion of Byron — 
Charles Dickens — Shopkeepers in English literature — Pride of 
aristocratic ignorance — Pursuits tabooed by the spirit of caste — 
Affected preferences in intellectual pursuits — Studies that add to 
gentility — Sincerity of interest needed for genuine culture — The 
exclusiveness of scholarly caste — Its bad influence on outsiders 
— Feeling of Burns towards scholars — Sureness of class-instinct — 
Unforeseen effect of railways — Return to nomadic life and the 
chase — Advantages and possibilities of life in the higher classes. 

It is one of the privileges of authorship to have corre- 
spondents in the most widely different positions, and by 
means of their frank and friendly letters (usually much 
more frank than any oral communication) to gain a singu- 
larly accurate insight into the working of circumstances 
on the human intellect and character. The same post 
that brought me your last letter brought news about 
another of my friends whose lot has been a striking con- 
trast to your own. 1 

1 I think it right to inform the reader that there is no fiction in 
this letter. 



PART 
VIII. 



274 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 

VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 



A dvantages 
of a young 
nobleman. 



Case of a 
poor cripple. 



Let me dwell upon this contrast for a few minutes. 
All the sunshine appears to have been on your side, and 
all the shadow on his. Born of highly cultivated parents, 
in the highest rank in England under royalty, you have 
lived from the beginning amongst the most efficient aids 
to culture, and Nature has so endowed you that, instead 
of becoming indifferent to these things from familiarity, 
you have learned to value them more and more in every 
successive year. The plainest statement of your advan- 
tages would sound like an extract from one of Disraeli's 
novels. Your father's principal castle is situated amongst 
the finest scenery in Britain, and his palace in London is 
filled with masterpieces of art. Wherever you have lived 
you have been surrounded by good literature and culti- 
vated friends. Your health is steadily robust, you can 
travel wherever you choose, and all the benefits of all 
the capitals of Europe belong to you as much as to their 
own citizens. In all these gifts and opportunities there 
is but one evil — the bewilderment of their multiplicity. 

My other correspondent has been less fortunately 
situated. " I began school," he says, " when six years 
old, was taken from it at eleven and sent to the mines to 
earn a little towards my own support. I continued there 
till fourteen, when through an unlucky incident I was 
made a hopeless cripple. At that day I was earning the 
noble sum of- eightpence per day, quite as much as any 
boy of that age got in the lead mines. I suffered much 
for two years ; after that, became much easier, but my 
legs were quite useless, and have continued so up to the 
present time. The right thigh-bone is decayed, has not 
got worse these nine years ; therefore I conclude that I 
may live — say other thirty years. I should like, at all 
] events, for life is sweet even at this cost ; not but what I 



AKIS TO CRA C Y AND DEMO CRA C V 



275 



could die quietly enough, I dare say. I have not been 
idle these years. . . ." 

(Here permit me to introduce a parenthesis. He 
certainly had not been idle. He had educated himself 
up to such a point that he could really appreciate both 
literature and art, and had attained some genuine skill in 
both. His letters to me were the letters of a cultivated 
gentleman, and he used invariably to insert little pen- 
sketches, which were done with a light and refined hand.) 

" I can do anything almost in bed — except getting up. 
I am now twenty-two years old. My father was a miner 
but is now unable to work. I have only one brother 
working, and we are about a dozen of us ; consequently 
we are not in the most flourishing circumstances, but a 
friend has put it in my power to learn to etch. I have 
got the tools and your handbook on the subject." 

These extracts are from his first letter. Afterwards he 
wrote me others which made me feel awed and humbled 
by the manly cheerfulness with which he bore a lot so 
dreary, and by the firmness of resolution he showed in 
his pursuits. He could not quit his bed, but that was 
not the worst ; he could not even sit up in bed, and yet 
he contrived, I know not how, both to write and draw 
and etch on copper, managing the plaguy chemicals, and 
even printing his own proofs. His bed was on wheels, 
on a sort of light iron carriage, and he saw nature 
out-of-doors. All the gladness of physical activity was 
completely blotted out of his existence, and in that 
respect his prospects were without hope. And still he 
said that " life was sweet." O marvel of all marvels, 
how could that life be sweet ! 

Aided by a beautiful patience and resignation the lamp 
of the mind burned with a steady brightness, fed by his 

T 2 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 



His 

i7ifirmily. 



Sweetness of 
life to him. 



276 



THE INTELLECTUAL LLEE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 



A sad end. 



Teachings- 



A bscncc of 

cliiss- 
sentiment. 



daily studies. In the winters, however, the diseased limb 
gave him prolonged agony, and in the autumn of 1872, 
to avoid the months of torture that lay before him, he 
had himself put in the railway and sent off, in his bed, 
to Edinburgh, sleeping in a waiting-room on the way. 
There was no one to attend him, but he trusted, not 
vainly, to the humanity of strangers. Just about the same 
time your lordship went northwards also, with many 
friends, to enjoy the noble scenery, and the excitement 
of noble sport. My poor cripple got to Edinburgh, got 
a glimpse of Scott's monument and the Athenian pillars, 
and submitted himself to the surgeons. They rendered 
him the best of services, for they ended his pains for ever. 

So I am to get no more of those wonderfully brave 
and cheerful letters that were written from the little bed 
on wheels. I miss them for the lessons they quite un- 
consciously conveyed. He fancied that he was the 
learner, poor lad ! and I the teacher, whereas it was 
altogether the other way. He made me feel what a 
blessing it is, even from the purely intellectual point of 
view, to be able to get out of bed after the night's rest, 
and go from one room to another. He made me under- 
stand the value of every liberty and every power, whilst 
at the same time he taught me to bear more patiently 
every limit, and inconvenience, and restriction. 

In comparing his letters with yours I have been 
struck by one reflection predominantly, which is, the 
entire absence of class-sentiment in both of you. No- 
body, not in the secret, could guess that one set of 
letters came from a palace and the other set from a 
poor miner's cottage; and even to me, who do not see 
the habitations except by an effort of the memory or 
imagination, there is nothing to recall the immensity of 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



277 



the social distance that separated my two friendly and 
welcome correspondents. It is clear, of course, that one 
of them had enjoyed greater advantages than the other, 
but neither wrote from the point of view which marks 
his caste or class. It was my habit to write to you, and 
to him, exactly in the same tone, yet this was not felt to 
be unsuitable by either. 

Is it not that the love and pursuit of culture lead each 
of us out of his class, and that class-views of any kind, 
whether of the aristocracy, or of the middle class, or of 
the people, inevitably narrow the mind and hinder it 
from receiving pure truth ? Have you ever known any 
person who lived habitually in the notions of a caste, high 
or low, without incapacitating himself in a greater or less 
degree for breadth and delicacy of perception? It seems 
to me that the largest and best minds, although they have 
been born and nurtured in this caste or that, and may 
continue to conform externally to its customs, always 
emancipate themselves from it intellectually, and arrive 
at a sort of neutral region, where the light is colourless, 
and clear, and equal, like plain daylight out of doors. So 
soon as we attain the forgetfulness of self, and become 
absorbed in our pursuits for their own sakes, the feeling 
of caste drops off from us. It was not a mark of culture 
in Tycho Brahe, but rather of the imperfections of his 
culture, that he felt so strongly the difficulty of concilia- 
ting scientific pursuits with the obligations of noble birth, 
and began his public discourses on astronomy by telling 
his audience that the work was ill-suited to his social 
position — hesitating, too, even about authorship from a 
dread of social degradation. And to take an instance 
from the opposite extreme of human society, Robert 
Burns betrayed the same imperfection of culture in his 



PART 
VIII. 



Class-views 

narrow thg 

mind. 



2;3 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 

I 



Canker of 
aristocracy. 



Byron 



Dickens. 



dedication to the members of the Caledonian Hunt, when 
he spoke of his " honest rusticity," and told the gentle- 
folks that he was " bred to the plough, and independent." 
Both of these men had been unfavourably situated for the 
highest culture, the one by the ignorance of his epoch 
the other by the ignorance of his class; hence this uneasi- 
ness about themselves and their social position. Shelley 
said of Byron, " The canker of aristocracy wants to be 
cut out;" and he did not say this from the point of view 
of a democrat, for Shelley was not precisely a democrat, 
but from the broadly human point of view, on which 
the finest intellects like to take their stand. Shelley per- 
ceived that Byron's aristocracy narrowed him, and made 
his sympathies less catholic than they might have been, 
nor can there be any doubt of the accuracy of this esti- 
mate of Shelley's ; if a doubt existed it would be removed 
by Byron's alternative for a poet, " solitude, or high life." 
Another man of genius, whose loss we have recently 
deplored, was narrowed by his antipathy to the aristo- 
cratic spirit, though it is necessary to add, in justice, that 
it did not prevent him from valuing the friendship of 
noblemen whom he esteemed. The works of Charles 
Dickens would have been more accurate as pictures of 
English life, certainly more comprehensively accurate, if 
he could have felt for the aristocracy that hearty and' 
loving sympathy which he felt for the middle classes and 
the people. But the narrowness of Dickens is more 
excusable than that of Byron, because a kindly heart 
more easily enters into the feelings of those whom it 
can often pity than of those who appear to be lifted 
above pity (though this is nothing but an appearance) 
and also because it is the habit of aristocracies to repel 
such sympathy by their manners, which the poor do not. 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY, 



279 



I have often thought that a sign of aristocratic narrow- 
ness in many English authors, including some of the most 
popular authors of the day, is the way they speak of 
shopkeepers. This may be due to simple ignorance ; 
but if so, it is ignorance that might be easily avoided. 
Happily for our convenience there are a great many 
shopkeepers in England, so that there is no lack of the 
materials for study ; but our novelists appear to consider 
this important class of Englishmen as unworthy of any 
patient and serious portraiture. You may remember Mr. 
Anthony Trollope's " Struggles of Brown, Jones, and 
Robinson," which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, 
under Thackeray's editorship. That was an extreme 
instance of the way the class is treated in our literature : 
• and then in poetry we have some disdainful verses of Mr. 
Tennyson's. It may be presumed that there is material 
for grave and respectful treatment of this extensive class, 
but our poets and novelists do not seem to have dis- 
covered, or sought to discover, the secret of that treat- 
ment. The intensity of the prejudices of caste prevents 
them from seeing any possibility of true gentleman- 
hood in a draper or a grocer, and blinds them to the 
aesthetic beauty or grandeur which may be as perfectly 
compatible with what is disdainfully called " counter- 
jumping" as it is admitted to be with the jumping of 
five-barred gates. 

The same caste prejudices have often kept the entire 
mass of the upper classes in ignorance of most valu- 
able and important branches of knowledge. The poor 
have been ignorant, yet never proud of their ignorance ; 
the ignorance that men are proud of belongs to caste 
always, not always to what we should call an aristo- 
cratic caste, but to the caste-feeling in one class or 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I 

English 

authors on 

shopkeepers. 



Mr. 
A nthony 
Trollope. 



Tennyson* 



Pride in 
ignorance. 



280 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 

Waste of 

life due to 

the pride of 

caste. 



- Tycho 
Brahe. 



another. The pride of the feudal baron in being totally 
illiterate amounted to self-exclusion from all intellectual 
culture, and we may still find living instances of partial 
self-exclusion from culture, of which pride is the only 
motive. There are people who pass their time in what 
are considered amusements (that do not amuse), because 
it seems to them a more gentlemanly sort of life than 
the devotion to some great and worthy pursuit which 
would have given the keenest zest and relish to their 
whole existence (besides making them useful members 
of society, which they are not), but which happens to 
be tabooed for them by the prejudices of their caste. 
There are many studies, in themselves noble and useful, 
that a man of good family cannot follow with the earnest- 
ness and the sacrifice of time necessary to success in' 
them, without incurring the disapprobation of his friends. 
If this disapprobation were visited on the breaker of 
caste-regulations because he neglected some other cul 
ture, there would still be something reasonable in it ; but 
this is not the case. The caste-regulation forbids the 
most honourable and instructive labour when it does 
not forbid the most unprofitable idleness, the most utter 
throwing away of valuable time and faculty. Tycho 
Brahe feared to lose caste in becoming the most illus- 
trious astronomer of his time ; but he would have 
had no such apprehension, nor «iny ground for such 
apprehension, if instead of being impelled to noble work 
by a high intellectual instinct, he had been impelled 
by meaner passions to unlimited self-indulgence. Even 
in our own day these prejudices are still strong enough, 
or have been until very lately, to keep our upper classes 
in great darkness about natural knowledge of all kinds, 
and about its application to the arts of life How few 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



281 



gentlemen have been taught to draw accurately, and how 
few are accurately acquainted with the great practical 
inventions of the age ! The caste-sentiment does not, 
in these days, keep them ignorant of literature, but i 
keeps them ignorant of things. A friend who had a 
strong constructive and experimental turn, told me that, 
as a rule, he found gentlemen less capable of entering 
into his ideas than common joiners and blacksmiths, 
because these humble workmen, from their habit of 
dealing with matter, had acquired some experience of 
its nature. For my own part, I have often been amazed 
by the difficulty of making something clear to a classi- 
cally educated gentleman which any intelligent mechanic 
would have seen to the bottom, and all round, after five 
or six minutes of explanation. There is a certain French 
nobleman whose ignorance I have frequent opportunities 
of fathoming, always with fresh astonishment at the 
depths of it, and I declare that he knows no more about 
the properties of stone, and timber, and metal, than if 
he were a cherub in the clouds of heaven ! 

But there is something in caste-sentiment even more 
prejudicial to culture than ignorance itself, and that is 
the affectation of strong preferences for certain branches 
of knowledge in which people are not seriously interested. 
There is nothing which people will not pretend to like, 
if a liking for it is supposed to be one of the marks and 
indications of gentility. There has been an immense 
amount of this kind of affectation in regard to classical 
scholarship, and we know for a certainty that it is affecta- 
tion whenever people are loud in their praise of classical 
authors whom they never take the trouble to read. It 
may have happened to you, as it has happened to me 
from time to time, to hear men affirm the absolute 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 



Ignorance of 
thhigs. 



Gentlemen 

and 
mechanics. 

A French 
nobleman- 



Affected 
preferences. 



282 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 



Affectations. 



That they 
repel the 
sincere. 



That they 

narrcrv our 

sympathy. 



necessity of classical reading to distinction of thought 
and manner, and yet to be aware at the same time, from 
close observation of their habits, that those very men 
entirely neglected the sources of that culture in which 
they professed such earnest faith. The explanation is, 
that as classical accomplishments are considered to be 
one of the evidences of gentility, whoever speaks loudly 
in their favour affirms that he has the tastes and pre- 
ferences of a gentleman. It is like professing the 
fashionable religion, or belonging to an aristocratic 
shade of opinion in politics. I have not a doubt that 
all affectations of this kind are injurious to genuine 
culture, for genuine culture requires sincerity of interest 
before everything, and the fashionable affectations, so far 
from attracting sincere men to the departments of learn- 
ing which happen to be a la mode, positively drive them 
away, just as many have become Nonconformists be- 
cause the established religion Avas considered necessary 
to gentility, who might have remained contented with its 
ordinances as a simple discipline for their souls. 

I dislike the interference of genteel notions in our 
studies for another reason. They deprive such culture 
as we may get from them, of one of the most precious 
results of culture, the enlargement of our sympathy for 
others. If we encourage ourselves in the pride of 
scholarly caste, so far as to imagine that we who have 
made Latin verses are above comparison with all who 
have never exercised their ingenuity in that particular 
way, we are not likely to give due and serious attention 
to the ideas of people whom we are pleased to consider 
uneducated ; and yet it may happen that these people 
are sometimes our intellectual superiors, and that their 
ideas concern us very closely. But this is only half the 



ARTS TO CRA CY A XD DEMO CRA C Y 



23" 



evil. The consciousness of our contempt embitters the 
feelings of men in other castes, and prevents them from 
accepting our guidance when it might be of the greatest 
practical utility to them. I may mention Robert Burns 
as an instance of a man of genius who would have been 
happier and more fortunate if he had felt no barrier of 
separation between himself and the culture of his time. 
His poetr) is as good rustic poetry as the best that has 
come down to us from antiquity, and instead of feeling 
towards the poets of times past the kind of soreness which 
a parvenu feels towards families of ancient descent, he 
ought rather to have rejoiced in the consciousness that 
he was their true and legitimate successor, as the clergy 
of an authentic Church feel themselves to be successors 
and representatives of saints and apostles who are 
gathered to their everlasting rest. But poor Burns knew 
that in an age when what is called scholarship gave all 
who had acquired it a right to look down upon poets 
who had only genius as the illegitimate offspring of 
nature, his position had not that solidity which belonged 
to the scholarly caste, and the result was a perpetual 
uneasiness which broke out in frequent defiance. 

" There's ither poets, much your betters, 
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters, 
Hae thought they had ensur'd their debtors 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tatters, 
Their unknown pages. " 

And again, in another poem — 

'* A set o' dull, conceited hashes 
Confuse their brains in college classes ! 
They gang in stirks, and come out asses ; 

Plain truth to speak ; 
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus 
By dint d Greek I " 



PART 
V11I. 

LETTEK 



How Burns 

felt himself 

separated 

from 

culture. 



Burn*. 



204 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 

Injustice of 

Burns 

towards 

scholars- 



Employment 

of the 

learned 

la//.°'7/ng-es as 

a defence of 

caste. 



It was the influence of caste that made Burns write in 
this way, and how unjust it was every modern reader 
knows. The great majority of poets have been well- 
educated men, and instead of ganging into college like 
stirks and coming out like asses, they have, as a rule, 
improved their poetic faculty by an acquaintance with 
the masterpieces of their art. Yet Burns is not to be 
blamed for this injustice ; he sneered at Greek because 
Greek was the mark of a disdainful and exclusive caste, 
but he never sneered at French or Italian. He had no 
soreness against culture for its own sake; it was the 
pride of caste that galled him. 

How surely the wonderful class-instinct guided the 
aristocracy to the kind of learning likely to be the most 
effectual barrier against fellowship with the mercantile 
classes and the people ! The uselessness of Greek in 
industry and commerce was a guarantee that those who 
had to earn their bread would never find time to master 
it, and even the strange difficult look of the alphabet 
(though in reality the alphabet was a gate of gossamer), 
ensured a degree of awful veneration for those initiated 
into its mysteries. Then the habit our forefathers had 
of quoting Latin and Greek to keep the ignorant in their 
places, was a strong defensive weapon of their caste, and 
they used it without scruple. Every year removes this 
passion for exclusiveness farther and farther into the 
past ; every year makes learning of every kind less avail- 
able as the armour of a class, and less to be relied upon 
as a means of social advancement and consideration. 
Indeed, we have already reached a condition which is . 
drawing back many members of the aristocracy to a 
state of feeling about intellectual culture resembling that 
of their forefathers in the middle ages. The old bar- 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



285 



barian feeling has revived of late, a feeling which (if it 
were self-conscious enough) might find expression in 
some such words as these : — 

" It is not by learning and genius that we can hold 
the highest place, but by the dazzling exhibition of ex- 
ternal splendour in those costly pleasures which are the 
plainest evidence of our power. Let us have beautiful 
equipages on the land, beautiful yachts upon the sea; 
let our recreations be public and expensive, that the 
people may not easily lose sight of us, and may know 
that there is a gulf of difference between our life and 
theirs. Why should we toil at books that the poorest 
students read, we who have lordly pastimes for every 
month in the year ? To be able to revel immensely in 
pleasures which those below us taste rarely or not at 
all, this is the best evidence of our superiority. So 
let us take them magnificently, like English princes 
and lords." 

Even the invention of railways has produced the 
entirely unforeseen result of a return in the direction of 
barbarism. If there is one thing which distinguishes 
civilization it is fixity of residence ; and it is essential to 
the tranquil following of serious intellectual purposes 
that the student should remain for many months of the 
year in his own library or laboratory, surrounded by all 
his implements of culture. But there are people of the 
highest rank in the England of to-day whose existence is 
as much nomadic as that of Red Indians in. the reserved 
territories of North America. You cannot ascertain their 
whereabouts without consulting the most recent news- 
paper. Their life may be quite accurately described as a 
return, on a scale of unprecedented splendour and com- 
fort, to the life of tribes in that stage of human develop- 



PART 
V11I. 

LETTER 
I. 



Ostentation 

in 
amicsement. 



Unforeseen 
result of 
railways- 



2S6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
I. 



Advantages 

of an 

English 

noble. 



ment which is known as the period of the chase. They 
migrate from one hunting-ground to another as the dimi- 
nution of the game impels them. Their residences, vast 
and substantial as they are, serve only as tents and 
wigwams. The existence of a monk in the cloister, of a 
prisoner in a fortress, is more favourable to the intellect 
than theirs. 

And yet, notwithstanding these re-appearances of the 
savage nature at the very summit of modern civilization, 
the life of a great English nobleman of to-day commands 
so much of what the intellectual know to be truly de- 
sirable, that it seems as if only a little firmness of reso- 
lution were needed to make all advantages his own. 
Surrounded by every aid, and having all gates open, he 
sees the paths of knowledge converging towards him like 
railways to some rich central city. He has but to choose 
his route, and travel along it with the least possible 
hindrance from every kind of friction, in the society of 
the best companions, and served by the most perfectly- 
trained attendants. Might not our lords be like those 
brilliant peers who shone like intellectual stars around 
the throne of Elizabeth, and our ladies like that great 
lady of whom said a learned Italian, "che non vi 
aveva altra dama al mondo che la pareggiasse nella 
cognizione delle arti e nella notizia delle scienze e 
delle lingue," wherefore he called her boldly, in the 
enthusiasm of his admiration, " grande anfitrite, Diana 
nume dell a terra I" 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



287 



LETTER II. 



TO AN ENGLISH DEMOCRAT. 



The liberal and illiberal spirit of aristocracy — The desire to draw a 
line — Substitution of external limitations for realities — The high 
life of nature — Value of gentlemen in a State — Odiousness of the 
narrow class-spirit — Julian Fane — Perfect knighthood — Demo- 
cracies intolerant of dignity — Tendency of democracies to fix one 
uniform type of manners — That type not a high one — A de- 
scriptive anecdote — Knowledge and taste reveal themselves in 
manners — Dr. Arnold on the absence of gentlemen in France 
and Italy — Absence of a class with traditional good manners 
Language defiled by the vulgarity of popular taste — Influence of 
aristocratic opinion limited, that of democratic opinion universal 
— Want of elevation in the French bourgeoisie — Spirit of the 
provincial democracy — Spirit of the Parisian democracy — Senti- 
ments and acts of the Communards — Romantic feeling towards 
the past — Hopes for liberal culture in the democratic idea — 
Aristocracies think too much of persons and positions — That we 
ought to forget persons and apply our minds to things, and 
phenomena, and ideas. 

All you say against the narrowness of the aristocratic 
spirit is true and to the point ; but I think that you and 
your party are apt to confound together two states of 
feeling which are essentially distinct from each other. 
There is an illiberal spirit of aristocracy, and there is 
also a liberal one. The illiberal spirit does not desire to 
improve itself, having a full and firm belief in its own 
absolute perfection ; its sole anxiety is to exclude others, 
to draw a circular line, the smaller the better, provided 
always that it gets inside and can keep the millions out. 
We see this spirit, not only in reference to birth, but in 
even fuller activity with regard to education and employ- 
ment — in the preference for certain schools and colleges, 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Illiberal 

spirit of 

aristocracy. 



288 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Substitution 
of external 
limitations 

for realities- 



Reality of 

high life 

as a fact in 

nature. 



for class reasons, without regard to the quality of the 
teaching — in the contempt for all professions but two or 
three, without regard to the inherent baseness or nobility 
of the work that has to be done in them : so that the 
question asked by persons of this temper is not whether 
a man lias been well trained in his youth, but if he has 
been to Eton and Oxford ; not whether he is honourably 
laborious in his manhood, but whether he belongs to the 
Bar, or the Army, or the Church. This spirit is evil in 
its influence, because it substitutes external limitations 
for the realities of the intellect and the soul, and makes 
those realities themselves of no account wherever its 
traditions prevail. This spirit cares nothing for culture, 
nothing for excellence, nothing for the superiorities that 
make men truly great ; all it cares for is to have reserved 
seats in the great assemblage of the world. Whatever 
you do, in fairness and honesty, against this evil and 
inhuman spirit of aristocracy, the best minds of this 
age approve ; but there is another spirit of aristocracy 
which does not always receive the fairest treatment at 
your hands, and which ought to be resolutely defended 
against you. 

There is really, in nature, such a thing as high life. 
There is really, in nature, a difference between the life 
of a gentleman who has culture, and fine bodily health, 
and independence, and the life of a Sheffield dry-grinder 
who cannot have any one of these three things. It is a 
good and not a bad sign of the state of popular intelli- 
gence when the people does not wilfully shut its eyes to 
the differences of condition amongst men, and when 
those who have the opportunity c f leading what is truly 
the high life accept its discipline joyfully and have a just 
pride in keeping themselves up to their ideal. A life of 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



2S9 



health, of sound morality, of disinterested intellectual 
activity, of freedom from petty cares, is higher than a 
life of disease, and vice, and stupidity, and sordid 
anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a nation 
to set before itself the highest attainable ideal of human 
life as the existence of the complete gentleman, and that 
an envious democracy, instead of rendering a service to 
itself, does exactly the contrary when it cannot endure 
and will not tolerate the presence of high-spirited gentle- 
men in the State. There are things in this world that it 
is right to hate, that we are the better for hating with all 
our hearts ; and one of the things that I hate most, and 
with most reason, is the narrow class-spirit when it sets 
itself against the great interests of mankind. It is 
odious in the narrow-minded, pompous, selfish, pitiless 
aristocrat who thinks that the sons of the people were 
made by Almighty God to be his lacqueys and their 
daughters to be his mistresses ; it is odious also, to the 
full as odious, in the narrow-minded, envious democrat 
who cannot bear to see any elegance of living, or grace 
of manner, or culture of mind above the range of his 
own capacity or his own purse. 

Let me recommend to your consideration the following 
words, written by one young nobleman about another 
young nobleman, and reminding us, as we much need 
to be reminded, that life may be not only honest and 
vigorous, but also noble and beautiful. Robert Lytton 
says of Julian Fane — 

" He was, I think, the most graceful and accom- 
plished gentleman of the generation he adorned, and 
by this generation, at least, appropriate place should 
be reserved for the memory of a man in whose 
character the most universal sympathy with all the 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 

II. 



Value of a 
high ideal. 



Odiousness 
of class- 
spirit in 
aristocrats : 



a «d also in 
democrats. 



Julian 
Fane. 



290 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 



A rtistry of 
life. 



Envious 

disposition 

of so vie 

democracies 



Intolerance 
0/ dignity. 



Uniformity 
of type in 

democratic 
manners- 



intellectual culture of his age was united to a refinement 
of social form, and a perfection of personal grace, which, 
in spite of all its intellectual culture, the age is sadly in 
want of. There is an artistry of life as well as of 
literature, and the perfect knighthood of Sidney is no 
less precious to the world than the genius of Spenser." 
It is just this "perfect knighthood" that an envious 
democracy sneers at and puts down. I do not say that 
all democracies are necessarily envious, but they often 
are so, especially when they first assert themselves, and 
whilst in that temper they are very willing to ostracise 
gentlemen, or compel them to adopt bad manners. I 
have some hopes that the democracies of the future may 
be taught by authors and artists to appreciate natural 
gentlemanhood ; but so far as we know them hitherto 
they seem intolerant of dignity, and disposed to attribute 
it (very unjustly) to individual self-conceit. The person- 
ages most popular in democratic countries are often 
remarkably deficient in dignity, and liked the better for 
the want of it, whilst if on the positive side they can 
display occasional coarseness they become more popular 
still. Then I should say, that although democratic feeling 
raises the lower classes and increases their self-respect, 
which is indeed one of the greatest imaginable benefits 
to a nation, it has a tendency to fix one uniform type of 
behaviour and of thought as the sole type in conformity 
with what is accepted for " common sense," and that 
type can scarcely, in the nature of things, be a very 
elevated one. I have been much struck, in France, by 
the prevalence of what may be not inaccurately defined 
as the commercial traveller type, even in classes where 
you would scarcely expect to meet with it. One little 
descriptive anecdote will illustrate what I mean. Having 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



291 



been invited to a stag-hunt in the Cote cTOr, I sat down 
to dejeuner with the sportsmen in a good country-house 
or chateau (it was an old place with four towers), and 
in the midst of the meal in came a man smoking a cigar. 
After a bow to the ladies he declined to eat anything, 
and took a chair a little apart, but just opposite me. He 
resumed his hat and went on smoking with a sans-gene 
that rather surprised me under the circumstances. He 
put one arm on the side-board : the hand hung down, and 
I perceived that it was dirty (so was the shirt), and that 
the nails had edges of ebony. On his chin there was a 
black stubble of two days' growth. He talked very 
loudly, and his dress and manners were exactly those of a 
bagman just arrived at his inn. Who and what could the 
man be ? I learned afterwards that he had begun life as 
a distinguished pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, that since 
then he had distinguished himself as an officer of artil- 
lery and had won the Legion of Honour on the field of 
battle, that he belonged to one of the principal families 
in the neighbourhood, and had nearly 2,000/. a year from 
landed property. Now, it may be a good thing for the 
roughs at the bottom of the social scale to level up to 
the bagman-ideal, but it does seem rather a pity (does 
it not?) that a born gentleman of more than common 
bravery and ability should level down to it. And it is 
here that lies the principal objection to democracy from 
the point of view of culture, that its notion of life and 
manners is a uniform notion, not admitting much variety 
of classes, and not allowing the high development of 
graceful and accomplished humanity in any class which 
an aristocracy does at least encourage in one class, 
though it may be numerically a small class. I have 
not forgotten what Saint -Simon and La Bruyere have 

u 2 



PART 

vin. 

LETTER 
II. 

A ne dote of 

a French 

officer. 



His dress 

and 
manners- 



Reflections 

suggested by 

them. 



292 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 

VIII. 

LETTER 
11. 



Talent in 
manners. 



Absence of 
gen'lemen 
in Prance 
and Italy. 



Dr. Arnold- 



Exceptions. 



testified about the ignorance of the old noblesse. Saint- 
Simon said that they were fit for nothing but fighting, 
and only qualified for promotion even in the army by 
seniority ; that the rest of their time was passed in " the 
most deadly uselessness, the consequence of their indo- 
lence and distaste for all instruction." I am sure that 
my modern artillery captain, notwithstanding his bad 
manners, knew more than any of his forefathers ; but 
where was his " perfect knighthood ? " And we easily 
forget " how much talent runs into manners/' as Emerson 
says. From the artistic and poetical point of view, 
behaviour is an expression of knowledge and taste and 
feeling in combination, as clear and. legible as literature 
or painting, so that when the behaviour is coarse and 
unbecoming we know that the perceptions cannot be 
delicate, whatever may have been learned at school. 
When Dr. Arnold travelled on the Continent, nothing 
struck him more than the absence of gentlemen. " We 
see no gentlemen anywhere," he writes from Italy. 
From France he writes: "Again I have been struck 
with the total absence of all gentlemen, and of all 
persons of the education and feelings of gentlemen." 
Now, although Dr. Arnold spoke merely from the ex- 
perience of a tourist, and was perhaps not quite com- 
petent to judge of Frenchmen and Italians otherwise 
than from externals, still there was much truth in his 
observation. It was not quite absolutely true. I have 
known two or three Italian officers, and one Savoyard 
nobleman, and a Frenchman here and there, who were 
as perfect gentlemen as any to be found in England, bu- 
they were isolated like poets, and were in fact poets it 
behaviour and self-discipline. The plain truth is, that 
there is no distinct class in France maintaining good 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



293 



manners as a tradition common to all its members ; and 
this seems to be the inevitable defect of a democracy. 
It may be observed, further, that language itself is 
defied by the vulgarity of the popular taste ; that expres- 
sions are used continually, even by the upper middle 
class, which it is impossible to print, and which are too 
grossly indecent to find a place even in the dictionaries ; 
that respectable men, having become insensible to the 
meaning of these expressions from hearing them used 
without intention, employ them constantly from habit, 
as they decorate their speech with oaths, whilst only 
purists refrain from them altogether. 

An aristocracy may be very narrow and intolerant, 
but it can only exclude from its own pale, whereas when 
a democracy is intolerant it excludes from all human 
intercourse. Our own aristocracy, as a class, rejects 
Dissenters, and artists, and men of science, but they 
flourish quite happily outside of it. Now try to picture 
to yourself a great democracy having the same prejudices, 
who could get out of the democracy ? Aft aristocracies 
are intolerant with reference, I will not say to religion, 
but, more accurately, with reference to the outward forms 
of religion, and yet this aristocratic intolerance has not 
prevented the development of religious liberty, because 
the lower classes were not strictly bound by the customs 
of the nobility and gentry. The unwritten law appears 
to be that members of an aristocracy shall conform 
either to what is actually the State Church or to what 
has been the State Church at some former period of the 
national history. Although England is a Protestant 
country, an English gentleman does not lose caste when 
he joins the Roman Catholic communion j but he loses 
caste when he becomes a Dissenter. The influence of 



PART 

vm. 

LETTER 
II 

Dcgradatio7i 
0/ language. 



A ristocradc 
intolerance. 



294 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Dangers of 
intolerance 

in a, 
democracy. 



Want of 
elevation in 
the French 
bourgeoisie- 



Quotation 

from 
Flaubert. 



this caste-law in keeping the upper classes within the 
Churches of England and of Rome has no doubt been 
very considerable, but its influence on the nation generally 
has been incomparably less considerable than that of 
some equally decided social rule in the entire mind of 
a democracy. Had this rule of conformity to the 
religion of the State been that of the English democracy, 
religious liberty would have been extinguished through- 
out the length and breadth of England. I say that 
the customs and convictions of a democracy are more 
dangerous to intellectual liberty than those of an aristo- 
cracy, because, in matters of custom, the gentry rule only 
within their own park-palings, whereas the people, when 
power resides with them, rule wherever the breezes blow. 
A democracy that dislikes refinement and good manners 
can drive men of culture into solitude, and make morbid 
hermits of the very persons who ought to be the lights 
and leaders of humanity. It can cut short the traditions 
of good-breeding, the traditions of polite learning, the 
traditions of thoughtful leisure, and reduce the various 
national types of character to one type, that of the com- 
mis-voyageur. All men of refined sentiment in modern 
France lament the want of elevation in the bourgeoisie. 
They read nothing, they learn nothing, they think of 
nothing but money and the satisfaction of their appetites. 
There are exceptions, of course, but the tone of the class 
is mean and low, and devoid of natural dignity or noble 
aspiration. Their ignorance passes belief, and is accom- 
panied by an absolute self-satisfaction. " La fin de la 
bourgeoisie," says an eminent French author, "com- 
mence parcequ'elle a les sentiments de la populace. Je 
ne vois pas qu'elle lise d'autres joumaux, qu'elle se 
regale d'une musique differente, qu'elle ait des plaisirs 






ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



295 



plus eleves. Chez l'une comme chez l'autre, c'est le raeme 
amour de l'argent, le merae respect du fait accompli, le 
meme besoin d'idoles pour les detruire, la merae haine 
de toute superiorite, le meme esprit de de'nigrement, la 
meme crasse ignorance ! " M. Renan also complains that 
during the Second Empire the country sank deeper and 
deeper into vulgarity, forgetting its past history and its 
noble enthusiasms. " Talk to the peasant, to the socialist 
of the International, of France, of her past history, of her 
genius, he will not understand you. Military honour 
seems madness to him; the taste for great things, the 
glory of the mind, are vain dreams ; money spent for art 
and science is money thrown away foolishly. Such is the 
provincial spirit." And if this is the provincial spirit, what 
is the spirit of the metropolitan democracy? Is it not 
clearly known to us by its acts ? It had the opportunity, 
under the Commune, of showing the world how ten- 
derly it cared for the monuments of national history, how 
anxious it was for the preservation of noble architecture, 
of great libraries, of pictures that can never be replaced. 
Whatever may have been our illusions about the character 
of the Parisian democracy, we know it very accurately 
now. To say that it is brutal would be an inadequate use 
of language, for the brutes are only indifferent to history 
and civilization, not hostile to them. So far as it is 
possible for us to understand the temper of that demo- 
cracy, it appears to cherish an active and intense hatred 
for every conceivable kind of superiority, and an instinc- 
tive eagerness to abolish the past; or, as that is not 
possible, since the past will always have been in spite 
of it, then at least to efface all visible memorials and 
destroy the bequests of all -preceding generations. If 
anyone had affirmed, before the fall of Louis Napoleon, 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Quotation 

from 
M. Return- 



The 

provincial 

spirit. 



The 

Parisian 

democracy. 



296 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



The extreme 

democratic 

temper. 



True 
stewardship. 



Ultra- 
democratic 
hostility to 
culture- 



that the democratic spirit was capable of setting fire to 
the Louvre and the national archives and libraries, of 
deliberately planning the destruction of all those mag- 
nificent edifices, ecclesiastical and civil, which were the 
glory of France and the delight of Europe, we should 
have attributed such an assertion to the exaggerations 
of reactionary fears. But since the y£ar 1870 we do 
not speculate about the democratic temper in its in- 
tensest expression; we have seen it at work, and we 
know it. We know that every beautiful building, every 
precious manuscript and picture, has to be protected 
against the noxious swarm of Communards as a sea- 
jetty against the Pholas and the Teredo. 

Compare this temper with that of a Marquis of Hert- 
ford, a Duke of Devonshire, a Due de Luynes ! True 
guardians of the means of culture, these men have given 
splendid hospitality to the great authors and artists of 
past times, by keeping their works for the future with 
tender and reverent care. Nor has this function of high 
stewardship ever been more nobly exercised than it is 
to-day by that true knight and gentleman, Sir Richard 
Wallace. Think of the difference between this great- 
hearted guardian of priceless treasures, keeping them 
for the people, for civilization, and a base-spirited Com- 
munard setting fire to the library of the Louvre. 

The ultra-democratic spirit is hostile to culture, from 
its hatred of all delicate and romantic sentiment, from its 
scorn of the tenderer and finer feelings of our nature, 
and especially from its brutish incapacity to comprehend 
the needs of the higher life. If it had its way we should 
be compelled by public opinion to cast all the records of 
our ancestors, and the shields they wore in battle, into the 
foul waters of an eternal Lethe. The intolerance of the 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



297 



sentiment of birth, that noble sentiment which has ani- 
mated so many hearts with heroism, and urged them to 
deeds of honour, associated as it is with a cynical dis- 
belief in the existence of female virtue, 1 is one of the 
commonest signs of this evil spirit of detraction. It is 
closely connected with an ungrateful indifference towards 
all that our forefathers have done to make civilization 
possible for us. Now, although the intellectual spirit 
studies the past critically, and does not accept history as 
a legend is accepted by the credulous, still the intel- 
lectual spirit has* a deep respect for all that is noble in 
the past, and would preserve the record of it for ever. 
Can you not imagine, have you not actually seen, the 
heir of some ancient house who shares to the full the 
culture and aspirations of the age in which we live, and 
who nevertheless preserves, with pious reverence, the 
towers his forefathers built on the ancestral earth, and 
the oaks they planted, and the shields that were carved 
on the tombs where the knights and their ladies rest? 
Be sure that a right understanding of the present is com- 
patible with a right and reverent understanding of the 
past, and that, although we may closely question history 
and tradition, no longer with child-like faith, still the 
spirit of true culture would never efface their vestiges. 
It was not Michelet, not Renan, not Hugo, who set 
fire to the Palace of Justice and imperilled the Sainte- 
Chapelle. 

And yet, notwithstanding all these vices and excesses 
of the democratic spirit, notwithstanding the meanness 
of the middle classes and the violence of the mob, there 

1 The association between the two is this. If you believe that 
you arc descended from a distinguished ancestor, you are simple 
enough to believe in his wife's fidelity. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Ingratitude 

to 

ancestors. 



Intellectual 

respect for 

the past. 



298 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART 
VIII. 

LETTER 

II. 

A ristce- 

racics think 

too much of 

persons and 

positions. 



For geff ill- 
ness of 
station- 

A fionyvtous 
joumalisn . 



is one all-powerful reason why our best hopes for the 
liberal culture of the intellect are centred in the demo- 
cratic idea. The reason is, that aristocracies think too 
much of persons and positions to weigh facts and opinions 
justly. In an aristocratic society it is thought unbecoming 
to state your views in their full force in the presence of 
any social superior. If you state them at all you must 
soften them to suit the occasion, or you will be a sinner 
against good-breeding. Observe how timid and acqui- 
escent the ordinary Englishman becomes in the presence 
of a lord. No right-minded person likes to be thought 
impudent, and where the tone of society refers every- 
thing to position, you are considered impudent when you 
forget your station. But what has my station to do with 
the truths the intellect perceives, that lie entirely outside of 
me ? From the intellectual point of view, it is a necessary 
virtue to forget your station, to forget yourself entirely, 
and to think of the subject only, in a manner perfectly 
disinterested. Anonymous journalism was a device to 
escape from that continual reference to the rank and 
fortune of the speaker which is an inveterate habit in all 
aristocratic communities. A young man without title 
or estate knows that he would not be listened to in 
the presence of his social superiors, so he holds his 
tongue in society and relieves himself by an article in 
the Times. The anonymous newspapers and reviews are 
a necessity in an aristocratic community, for they are the 
only means of attracting attention to facts and opinions 
without attracting it to yourself, the only way of escaping 
the personal question, " Who and what are you, that you 
venture to speak so plainly, and where is your stake in 
the country ? " 

The democratic idea, by its theoretic equality amongst 



ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. 



299 



men, affords an almost complete relief from this impedi- 
ment to intellectual conversation. The theory of equality 
is good, because it negatives the interference of rank and 
wealth in matters that appertain to the intellect or to 
the moral sense. It may even go one step farther with 
advantage, and ignore intellectual authority also. The 
perfection of the intellectual spirit is the entire forgetful- 
ness of persons, in the application of the whole power of 
the mind to things, and phenomena, and ideas. Not to 
mind whether the speaker is of noble or humble birth, 
rich or poor; this indeed is much, but we ought to attain 
a like indifference to the authority of the most splendid 
reputation. " Every great advance in natural know- 
ledge," says Professor Huxley, " has involved the absolute 
rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scep- 
ticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith ; and 
the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest con- 
victions, not because the men he most venerates hold 
them, not because their verity is testified by portents and 
wonders, but because his experience teaches him that 
whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into 
contact with their primary source, Nature — whenever he 
thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to 
observation — Nature will confirm them." 



part 

VIII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Forgetf ul- 
ness of 
persons. 



Rejection of 
authority. 



PART IX. 

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 

LETTER I. 



PART TX. 

LETTER 
I. 



Temporary 

nature of 

i?itellectual 

friendships. 



TO A LADY WHO DOUBTED THE REALITY OF INTELLECTUAL 

FRIENDSHIPS. 

That intellectual friendships are in their nature temporary, when 
there is no basis of feeling to support them — Their freshness 
soon disappears — Danger of satiety — Temporary acquaintances 
— Succession in friendships — Free communication of intellectual 
results— Friendships between ripe and immature men — Rem- 
brandt and Hoogstraten — Tradition transmitted through these 
friendships. 

I heartily agree with you so far as this, that intellectual 
relations will not sustain friendship for very long, unless 
there is also some basis of feeling to sustain it. And 
still there is a certain reality in the friendships of the in- 
tellect whilst they last, and they are remembered grate- 
fully for their profit when in the course of nature they 
have ceased. We may wisely contract them, and blame- 
lessly dissolve them when the occasion that created them 
has gone by. They are like business partnerships, con- 
tracted from motives of interest, and requiring integrity 
abeve all things, with mutual respect and consideration, 






SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



\o\ 



yet not necessarily either affection or the semblance of 
it. Since the motive of the intellectual existence is the 
desire to ascertain and communicate truth, a sort of 
positive and negative electricity immediately establishes 
itself between those who want to know and those who 
desire to communicate their knowledge; and the con- 
nection is mutually agreeable until these two desires are 
satisfied. When this happens, the connection naturally 
ceases ; but the memory of it usually leaves a permanent 
feeling of good-will, and a permanent disposition to 
render services of the same order. This, in brief, is the 
whole philosophy of the subject ; but it may be observed 
farther, that the purely intellectual intercourse which 
often goes by the name of friendship affords excellent 
opportunities for the formation of real friendship, since 
it cannot be long continued without revealing much of 
the whole nature of the associates. 

We do not easily exhaust the mind of another, but we 
easily exhaust what is accessible to us in his mind ; 
and when we have done this, the first benefit of inter- 
course is at an end. Then comes a feeling of dulness and 
disappointment, which is full of the bitterest discourage- 
ment to the inexperienced. In maturer life we are so 
well prepared for this that it discourages us no longer. 
We know beforehand that the freshness of the mind that 
was new to us will rapidly wear away, that we shall soon 
assimilate the fragment of it which is all that ever can be 
made our own, so we enjoy the freshness whilst it lasts, 
and are even careful of it as a fruiterer is of the bloom 
upon his grapes and plums. It may seem a hard and 
worldly thing to say, but it appears to me that a wise man 
might limit his intercourse with others before there was 
any danger of satiety, as it is wisdom in eating to rise 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
I. 

Nature and 
results of 
intellectual 
friendships 



Exhaustion 
of ivhat is 

accessible to 

us in other 

minds. 



;c2 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
I. 



Temporary 
acquaint- 
ances. 



Succession 
friendships. 



A dis- 
tinguished 
1: nglish- 

m an. 



from table with an appetite. Certainly, if the friends of 
our intellect live near enough for us to anticipate no per- 
manent separation by mere distance, if we may expect to 
meet them frequently, to have many opportunities for a 
more thorough and searching exploration of their minds, 
it is a wise policy not to exhaust them all at once. With 
the chance acquaintances we make in travelling, the case 
is altogether different ; and this is, no doubt, the reason 
why men are so astonishingly communicative when they 
never expect to see each other any more. You feel 
an intense curiosity about some temporary companion ; 
you make many guesses about him ; and to induce him 
to tell you as much as possible in the short time you 
are likely to be together, you win his confidence by a 
frankness that would perhaps considerably surprise your 
nearest neighbours and relations. This is due to the 
shortness of the opportunity ; but with people who 
live in the same place, you will proceed much more 
deliberately. 

Whoever would remain regularly provided with intel- 
lectual friends, ought to arrange a succession of friend- 
ships, as gardeners do with peas and strawberries, so 
that, whilst some are fully ripe, others should be ripening 
to replace them. This doctrine sounds like blasphemy 
against friendship ; but it is not intended to apply to the 
sacred friendship of the heart, which ought to be perma- 
nent like marriage, only to the friendship of the head, 
which is of the utmost utility to culture, yet in its nature 
temporary. I know a distinguished Englishman who is 
quite remarkable for the talent with which he arranges 
his intellectual friendships, so as never to be dependent 
on anyone, but always sure of the intercourse he needs, 
both now and in the future. He will' never be isolated. 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3°3 



never without some fresh and living interest in humanity. 
It may seem to you that there is a lamentable want of 
faith in this ; and I grant at once that a system of this 
kind does presuppose the extinction of the boyish belief 
in the permanence of human relations ; still, it indicates 
a large-minded confidence in the value of human inter- 
course, an enjoyment of the present, a hope for the 
future, and a right appreciation of the past. 

Nothing is more beautiful in the intellectual life than 
the willingness of all cultivated people — unless they 
happen to be accidentally soured by circumstances that 
have made them wretched — to communicate to others 
the results of all their toil. It is true that they appa- 
rently lose nothing by the process, and that a rich man 
who gives some portion of his material wealth exercises 
a greater self-denial ; still, when you consider that men 
of culture, in teaching others, abandon something of 
their relative superiority, and often voluntarily incur 
the sacrifice of what is most precious to them, namely, 
their time, I think you will admit that their readiness in 
this kind of generosity is one of the finest characteristics 
of highly-developed humanity. Of all intellectual friend- 
ships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist 
between old and ripe men and their younger brethren 
in science, or literature, or art. It is by these private 
friendships, even more than by public performance, that 
the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is per- 
petuated from age to age. Hoogstraten, who was a 
pupil of Rembrandt, asked him many questions, which 
the great master answered thus : — " Try to put well in 
practice what you already know ; in so doing you will, 
in good time, discover the hidden things which you now 
inquire about." That answer of Rembrandt's is typical 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
I. 



Willingness 

of the 
cultivated to 
communi- 
cate results. 



Friendships 
between old 
and young. 



Rembrandt 
and Hoog- 
straten- 



3°4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



The 

tradition of 

kindness. 



LETTER 
II. 



of the maturest teaching. How truly friendly it is ; hou 
full of encouragement ; how kind in its admission that 
the younger artist did already know something worth 
putting into practice ; and yet, at the same time, how 
judicious in its reserve ! Few of us have been so ex- 
ceptionally unfortunate as not to find, in our own age, 
some experienced friend who has helped us by precious 
counsel, never to be forgotten. We cannot render it in 
kind ; but perhaps in the fulness of time it may become 
our noblest duty to aid another as we have ourselves 
been aided, and to transmit to him an invaluable trea- 
sure, the tradition of the intellectual life. 



LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABLE 

SOCIETY. 

Certain dangers to the intellectual life — Difficult to resist the influ- 
ences of society — Gilding — Fashionable education — Affectations 
of knowledge — Not easy to ascertain what people really know — 
Value of real knowledge diminished — Some good effects of 
affectations — Their bad effect on workers — Skill in amusements. 

The kind of life which you have been leading for the 
last three or four years will always be valuable to you as 
a past experience, but if the intellectual ambition you 
confessed to me is quite serious, I would venture to 
suggest that there are certain dangers in the continuation 
of your present existence if altogether uninterrupted. 
Pray do not suspect me of any narrow prejudice against 
human intercourse, or of any wish to make a hermit of 
you before your time, but believe that the few obser- 
vations I have to make are grounded simply on the 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3°5 



desire that your career should be entirely satisfactory to 
your own maturer judgment, when you will look back 
upon it after many years. 

An intellectual man may go into general society quite 
safely if only he can resist its influence upon his serious 
work; but such resistance is difficult in maturity and 
impossible in youth. 

The sort of influence most to be dreaded is this. 
Society is, and must be, based upon appearances, and 
not upon the deepest realities. It requires some degree 
of reality to produce the appearance, but not a sub- 
stantial reality. Gilding is the perfect type of what So- 
ciety requires. A certain quantity of gold is necessary 
for the work of the gilder, but a very small quantity, and 
skill in applying the metal so as to cover a large surface 
is of greater consequence than the weight of the metal 
itself. The mind of a fashionable person is a carefully 
gilded mind. 

Consider fashionable education. Society imperatively 
requires an outside knowledge of many things; not per- 
mitting the frank confession of ignorance, whilst it is yet 
satisfied with a degree of knowledge differing only from 
avowed ignorance in permitting you to be less sincere. 
All young ladies, whether gifted by nature with any 
musical talent or not, are compelled to say that they 
have learned to play upon the piano ; all young gen- 
tlemen are compelled to affect to know Latin. In the 
same way the public opinion of Society compels its mem- 
bers to pretend to know and appreciate the masterpieces 
of literature and art. There is, in truth, so much com- 
pulsion of this kind that it is not easy to ascertain what 
people do really know and care about until they admit 
you into their confidence. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
II. 



Society not 

based upon 

the deepest 

realities. 

Gilding. 



Fashionable 
education. 



3c6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
II. 



Defireci- 
ati?ig effect 
of fashiofi- 
abte ideas. 



Utility of 
fashio?;able 
affectations. 



Their bad- 
effects. 



The inevitable effect of these affectations is to diminish 
the value, in Society, of genuine knowledge and accom- 
plishment of all kinds. I know a man who is a Latin 
scholar ; he is one of the few moderns who have really 
learned Latin ; but in fashionable society this brings him 
no distinction, because we are all supposed to know 
Latin, and the true scholar, when he appears, cannot be 
distinguished from the multitude of fashionable pretenders. 
I know another man who, can draw ; there are not many 
men, even amongst artists, who can draw soundly ; yet in 
fashionable society he does not get the serious sort of 
respect which he deserves, because fashionable people 
believe that drawing is an accomplishment generally at- 
tainable by young ladies and communicable by gover- 
nesses. I have no wish to insinuate that Society is wrong 
in requiring a certain pretence to education in various 
subjects, and a certain affectation of interest in master- 
pieces, for these pretences and affectations do serve to 
deliver it from the darkness of a quite absolute ignorance. 
A society of fashionable people who think it necessary to 
be able to talk superficially about the labours of men 
really belonging to the intellectual class, is always sure 
to be much better informed than a Society such as that of 
the French peasantry, for example, where nobody is ex- 
pected to know anything. It is well for Society itself that 
it should profess a deep respect for classical learning, for 
the great modern poets and painters, for scientific dis- 
coverers, even though the majority of its members do not 
seriously care about them. The pretension itself requires 
a certain degree of knowledge, as gilding requires a cer- 
tain quantity of gold. 

The evil effects of these affectations may be summed 
up in a sentence. They diminish the apparent value of 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



307 



the realities which they imitate, and they tend to weaken 
our enthusiasm for those great realities, and our ardour 
in the pursuit of them. The impression which fashion- 
able society produces upon a student who has strength 
enough to resist it, is a painful sense of isolation in his 
earnest work. If he goes back to the work with courage 
undiminished, he still clearly realizes — what it would be 
better for him not to realize quite so clearly — the use- 
lessness of going beyond fashionable standards, if he 
aims at social success. And there is still another thing 
to be said which concerns you just now very particularly. 
Whoever leads the intellectual life in earnest is sure on 
some points to fail in strict obedience to the exigencies 
of fashionable life, so that, if fashionable successes are 
still dear to him, he will be constantly tempted to make 
some such reflections as the following : — " Here am I, 
giving years and years of labour to a pursuit which brings 
no external reward, when half as much work would keep 
me abreast of the society I live with, in everything it 
really cares about. I know quite well all that my learn- 
ing is costing me. Other men outshine me easily in 
social pleasures and accomplishments. My skill at bil- 
liards and on the moors is evidently declining, and 1 
cannot ride or drive so well as fellows who do very little 
else. In fact, I am becoming an old muff, and all I have 
to show on the other side is a degree of scholarship 
which only six men in Europe can appreciate, and a 
speciality in natural science in which my little discoveries 
are sure to be either anticipated or left behind." 

The truth is, that to succeed well in fashionable society 
the higher intellectual attainments are not so useful as 
distinguished skill in those amusements which are the 
real business of the fashionable world. The three things 

x a 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Isolation in 
earnest 
work. 



A conse- 
quence 0/ 
eariustness. 



Skill in 
amusemetita. 



3 o8 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Time 
required for 
amusements. 



LETTER 
III. 



which tell best in your favour amongst young gentlemen 
are to be an excellent shot, to ride well to hounds, and 
to play billiards with great skill. I wish to say nothing 
against any of these accomplishments, having an espe- 
cially hearty admiration and respect for all good horse- 
men, and considering the game of billiards the most 
perfectly beautiful of games ; still, the fact remains that 
to do these things as well as some young gentlemen do 
them, we must devote the time which they devote, and if 
we regularly give nine hours a day to graver occupations, 
pray, how and where are we to find it ? 



LETTER III. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABUt 

SOCIETY. 

Some exceptional men may live alternately in different worlds — 
Instances — Differences between the fashionable and the intel- 
lectual spirit — Men sometimes made unfashionable by special 
natural gifts — Sometimes by trifling external circumstances — 
Anecdote of Ampere — He did not shine in society — His wife's 
anxieties about his material wants — Apparent contrast between 
Ampere and Oliver Goldsmith. 

You ask me why there should be any fundamental in- 
compatibility between the fashionable and the intellectual 
lives. It seems to you that the two might possibly be 
reconciled, and you mention instances of men who 
attained intellectual distinction without deserting the 
fashionable world. 

Yes, there have been a few examples of men endowed 
with that overflow of energy which permits the most 
opposite pursuits, and enables its possessors to live, ap- 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3°9 



parently, in two worlds between which there is not any 
natural affinity. A famous French novelist once took 
the trouble to elaborate the portrait of a lady who passed 
one half of her time in virtue and churches, whilst she 
employed the other half in the wildest adventures. In 
real life I may allude to a distinguished English engraver, 
who spent a fortnight over his plate and a fortnight in 
some fashionable watering-place, alternately, and who 
found this distribution of his time not unfavourable 
to the elasticity of his mind. Many hard-working 
Londoners, who fairly deserve to be considered intellec- 
tual men, pass their days in professional labour and their 
evenings in fashionable society. But in all instances of 
this kind the professional work is serious enough, and 
regular enough, to give a very substantial basis to the 
life, so that the times of recreation are kept daily subor- 
dinate by the very necessity of circumstances. If you 
had a profession, and were obliged to follow it in earnest 
six or eight hours a day, the more Society amused you, 
the better. The danger in your case is that your 
whole existence may take a fashionable tone. 

The esprit or tone of fashion differs from the intellec- 
tual tone in ways which I will attempt to define. Fashion 
is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and 
idle people who make it their principal business to study 
tne external elegance of life. This custom incessantly 
changes. If your habits of mind and life change with it 
you are a fashionable person, but if your habits of mind 
and life either remain permanently fixed or follow some 
law of your own individual nature, then you are outside 
of fashion. The intellectual spirit is remarkable for its 
independence of custom, and therefore on many occa- 
sions it will clash with the fashionable spirit. It does 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
III. 

People ivho 

live al.er- 

?ialely in 

different 

worlds. 



The tone of 
fashion. 

Definition of 
fashion. 



Intellectual 

spirit 
independent 
of custom. 



310 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
III. 



Intellectual 
specialties- 



A 

tnecha7ilcal 

genius. 



A mpere. 



so most frequently in the choice of pursuits, and in the 
proportionate importance which the individual student 
will (in his own case) assign to his pursuits. The regu- 
lations of fashionable life have fixed, at the least tem- 
porarily, the degree of time and attention which a 
fashionable person may devote to this thing or that. 
The intellectual spirit ignores these regulations, and 
devotes its possessor, or more accurately its possessed^ 
to the intellectual speciality for which he has most 
natural aptitude, often leaving him ignorant of what 
fashion has decided to be essential. After living the 
intellectual life for several years he will know too much 
of one thing and too little of some other things to be 
in conformity with the fashionable ideal. For example, 
the fashionable ideal of a gentleman requires classical 
scholarship, but it is so difficult for artists and men of 
science to be classical scholars also that in this respect 
they are likely to fall short. I knew a man who became 
unfashionable because he had a genius for mechanics. 
He was always about steam-engines, and, though a gentle- 
man by birth, associated from choice with men who 
understood the science that chiefly interested him, of 
which all fashionable people were so profoundly ignorant 
that he habitually kept out of their way. He, on his 
part, neglected scholarship and literature and all that 
" artistry of life," as Mr. Robert Lytton calls it, in which 
fashionable society excels. Men are frequently driven 
into unfashionable existence by the very force and vigour 
of their own intellectual gifts, and sometimes by external 
circumstances, apparently most trifling, yet of infinite 
influence on human destiny. There is a good instance 
of this in a letter from Ampere to his young wife, that 
" Julie " who was lost to him so soon. " I went to dine 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3" 



yesterday at Madame Beauregard's with hands blackened 
by a harmless drug which stains the skin for three or four 
days. She declared that it looked like manure, and 
ended by leaving the table, saying that she would dine 
when I was at a distance. I promised not to return 
there before my hands were white. Of course I shall 
never enter the house again." 

Here we have an instance of a man of science who 
has temporarily disqualified himself for polite society by 
an experiment in the pursuit of knowledge. What do 
you think of the vulgarity of Madame Beauregard ? To 
me it appears the perfect type of that pre-occupation 
about appearances which blinds the genteel vulgar to the 
true nobility of life. Were not Ampere's stained hands 
nobler than many white ones? It is not necessary for 
every intellectual worker to blacken his fingers with 
chemicals, but a kind of rust very frequently comes over 
him which ought to be as readily forgiven, yet rarely 
is forgiven. "In his relations with the world," writes 
the biographer of Ampere, " the authority of superiority 
disappeared. To this the course of years brought 
no alternative. Ampere become celebrated, laden with 
honourable distinctions, the great Ampere ! outside the 
speculations of the intellect, was hesitating and timid 
again, disquieted and troubled, and more disposed to 
accord his confidence to others than to himself." 

Intellectual pursuits did not qualify Ampere, they do 
not qualify anyone, for success in fashionable society. 
To succeed in the world you ought to be of the world, 
so as to share the things which interest it without too 
wide a deviation from the prevalent current of your 
thoughts. Its passing interests, its temporary customs, 
its transient phases of sentiment and opinion, ought to be 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
III. 

Anecdote of 
A mpere. 



Genteel 

vulgarity. 



On bei?ig of 
the world. 



312 



THE INTELLECTUAL LLFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
III. 



Madame 
A mpere's 
anxiety 
about her 
husband. 



A mpere^s 
clothes. 



for the moment your own interests, your own feelings 
and opinions. A mind absorbed as Ampere's was in 
the contemplation and elucidation of the unchangeable 
laws of nature, is too much fixed upon the permanent 
to adapt itself naturally to these ever-varying estimates. 
He did not easily speak the world's lighter language, he 
could not move with its mobility. Such men forget even 
what they eat and what they put on ; Ampere's young 
wife was in constant anxiety, whilst the pair were sepa- 
rated by the severity of their fate, as to the sufficiency 
of his diet and the decency of his appearance. One 
day she writes to him to mind not to go out in "his 
shabby old coat, and in the same letter she entreats him 
to purchase a bottle of wine, so that when he took no 
milk or broth he would find it, and when it was all 
drunk she tells him to buy another bottle. Afterwards 
she asks him whether he makes a good fire, and if 
he has any chairs in his room. In another letter she 
inquires if his bed is comfortable, and in another she 
tells him to mind about his acids, for he has burnt 
holes in his blue stockings. Again, she begs him to 
try to have a passably decent appearance, because that 
will give pleasure to his poor wife. He answers, to tran- 
quillize her, that he does not burn his things now, and 
that he makes chemical experiments only in his old 
breeches with his grey coat and his waistcoat of greenish 
velvet. But one day he is forced to confess that she 
must send him new trousers if he is to appear before 
MM. Delambre and Villars. He "does not know what 
to do," his best breeches still smell of turpentine, and, 
having wished to put on trousers to go to the Society of 
Emulation, he saw the hole which Barrat fancied he 
had mended become bigger than ever, so that it showed 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3*3 



the piece of different cloth which he had sown under it. 
He adds that his wife will be afraid that he will spoil 
his " beau pantalon? but he promises to send it back 
to her as clean as when he received it. How different 
is all this from that watchful care about externals which 
marks the man of fashion ! Ampere was quite a young 
man then, still almost a bridegroom, yet he is already so 
absorbed in the intellectual life as to forget appearances 
utterly, except when Julie, with feminine watchfulness, 
writes to recall them to his mind. I am not defend- 
ing or advocating this carelessness. It is better to 
be neat and tidy than to go in holes and patches; 
but I desire to insist upon the radical difference between 
the fashionable spirit and the intellectual spirit. And 
this difference, which shows itself in these external 
things, is not less evident in the clothing or preparation 
of the mind. Ampere's intellect, great and noble as it 
was, could scarcely be considered more suitable for le 
grand monde than the breeches that smelt of turpentine, 
or the trousers made ragged by aquafortis. 

A splendid contrast, as to tailoring, was our own dear 
Oliver Goldsmith, who displayed himself in those wonder- 
ful velvet coats and satin small-clothes from Mr. Filby's, 
which are more famous than the finest garments ever 
worn by prince or peer. Who does not remember that 
bloom-coloured coat which the ablest painters have 
studiously immortalized, made by John Filby, at the 
Harrow, in Water Lane (best advertised of tailors !), and 
that charming blue velvet suit, which Mr. Filby was 
never paid for? Surely a poet so splendid was fit for 
the career of fashion ! No, Oliver Goldsmith's velvet 
and lace were the expression of a deep and painful sense 
of personal unfitness. They were the fine frame which is 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
HI. 



A mfore 

U7i suited for 

ihc grand 

monde. 



Goldsmiths 
fine clothes. 



3H 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
III. 

J.lutson''s 
neglect of 
fashion. 



L iving me?i 
of genius. 



LETTER 
IV. 



intended to pass off an awkward and imperfect picture. 
There was a qvJieter dignity in Johnson's threadbare 
sleeves. Johnson, the most influential though not the 
most elegant intellect of his time, is grander in his 
neglect of fashion than Goldsmith in his ruinous subser- 
vience. And if it were permitted to me to speak of two 
or three great geniuses who adorn the age in which we 
ourselves are living, I might add that they seem to follow 
the example of the author of "Rasselas" rather than 
that of Mr. Filby's illustrious customer. They remind 
me of a good old squire who, from a fine sentiment of 
duty, permitted the village artist to do his worst upon 
him, and incurred thereby this withering observation 
from his metropolitan tailor : " You are covered, sir, but 
you are not dressed i" 



LETTER IV. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABLE 

SOCIETY. 

Test of professions — Mobility of fashionable taste — Practical service 
of an external deference to culture — Incompatibility between 
fashionable and intellectual lives — What each has to offer. 

Your polite, almost diplomatic answer to my letter 
about fashionable society may be not unfairly concen- 
trated into some such paragraph as the following : — 

"What grounds have I for concluding that the pro- 
fessed tastes and opinions of Society are in any degree 
insincere ? May not society be quite sincere in the pre- 
ferences which it professes, and are not the preferences 
themselves almost always creditable to the good taste 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3*5 



and really advanced culture of the Society which I 
suspect of a certain degree of affectation ? " 

This is the sense of your letter, and in reply to it I 
give you a simple but sure test. Is the professed opinion 
carried out in practice, when there are fair opportunities 
for practice ? 

Let us go so far as to examine a particular instance. 
Your friends profess to appreciate classical literature. 
Do they read it ? Or, on the other hand, do they confine 
themselves to believing that it is a good thing for other 
people to read it ? 

When I was a schoolboy, people told me that the 
classical authors of antiquity were eminently useful, and 
indeed absolutely necessary to the culture of the human 
mind, but I perceived that they did not read them. So 
I have heard many people express great respect for 
art and science, only they did not go so far as to master 
any department of art or science. 

If you will apply this test to the professions of what is 
especially called fashionable society, it is probable that 
you will arrive at the conclusions of the minority, which 
I have endeavoured to express. You will find that the 
fashionable world remains very contentedly outside the 
true working intellectual life, and does not really share 
either its labours or its aspirations. 

Another kind of evidence, which tells in the same 
direction, is the mobility of fashionable taste. At one 
time some studies are fashionable, at another time these 
are neglected and others have taken their place. You 
wil not find this fickleness in the true intellectual world, 
which steadily pursues all its various studies, and keeps 
them well abreast, century after century. 

If I insist upon this distinction with reference to you, 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Test of 

professions. 



Mobility of 

fashionable 

taste. 



316 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 

IV. 



Good effect 

of external 

d ference to 

culture. 



Nominal 
esteem /or 

great 
pursuits. 



do not accuse me of hostility even to fashion itself. 
Fashion is one of the great Divine institutions of human 
society, and the best philosophy rebels against none of 
the authorities that be, but studies and endeavours to 
explain them. The external deference which Society 
yields to culture is practically of great service, although 
(I repeat the epithet) it is external. The sort of good 
effect is in the intellectual sphere what the good effect of 
a general religious profession is in the moral sphere. All 
fashionable society goes to church. Fashionable religion 
differs from the religion of Peter and Paul as fashionable 
science differs from that of Humboldt and Arago, yet, 
notwithstanding this difference, the profession of religion 
is useful to Society as some restraint, at least during 
one day out of seven, upon its inveterate tendency to 
live exclusively for its amusement. And if any soul 
happens to come into existence in the fashionable world 
which has the genuine religious nature, that nature has 
a chance of developing itself, and of finding ready to 
hand certain customs which are favourable to its well- 
being. So it is, though in quite a different direction, 
with the esteem which Society professes for intellectual 
pursuits. It is an esteem in great part merely nominal, 
as fashionable Christianity is nominal, and still it helps 
and favours the early development of the genuine 
faculty where it exists. It is certainly a great help to us 
that fashionable society, which has such a tremendous, 
such an almost irresistible power for good or evil, does 
not openly discourage our pursuits, but on the con- 
trary regards them with great external deference and 
respect. The recognition which Society has given to 
artists has been wanting in frankness and in promp- 
titude, though even in this case much may be said 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



317 



to excuse a sort of hesitation rather than refusal which 
was attributable to the strangeness and novelty of the 
artistic caste in England ; but Society has for more than a 
generation professed a respect for literature and erudi- 
tion which has helped those two branches of culture more 
effectually than great subsidies of money. The exact 
truth seems to be that Society is sincere in approving our 
devotion to these pursuits, but is not yet sufficiently in- 
terested in them to appreciate them otherwise than from 
the outside, just as a father and mother applaud their 
boys for reading Thucydides, yet do not read him them- 
selves, either in the original or in a translation. 

All that I care to insist upon is that there is a degree of 
incompatibility between the fashionable and the intellec- 
tual lives which makes it necessary, at a certain time, to 
choose one or the other as our own. There is no hostility, 
there need not be any uncharitable feeling on one side or 
the other, but there must be a resolute choice between the 
two. If you decide for the intellectual life, you will incur 
a definite loss to set against your gain. Your existence 
may have calmer and profounder satisfactions, but it will 
be less amusing, and even in an appreciable degree less 
human; less in harmony, I mean, with the common in- 
stincts and feelings of humanity. For the fashionable 
world, although decorated by habits of expense, has en- 
joyment for its object, and arrives at enjoyment by those 
methods which the experience of generations has proved 
to be most efficacious. Variety of amusement, frequent 
change of scenery and society, healthy exercise, pleasant 
occupation of the mind without fatigue — these things do 
indeed make existence agreeable to human nature, and 
the science of living agreeably is better understood in the 
fashionable society of England than by laborious students 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
IV 



Incom- 
patibility 
between the 
fashionable 

and the 

intellectual 

lives- 



Enjoyment 

the object oj 

the world. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



What the 

intellectual 

lije has to 

offer. 



and savans. The life led by that society is the true 
heaven of the natural man. who likes to have frequent 
feasts and a hearty appetite, who enjoys the varying spec- 
tacle of wealth, and splendour, and pleasure, who loves to 
watch, from the Olympus of his personal ease, the curious 
results of labour in which he takes no part, the interesting 
ingenuity of the toiling world below. In exchange for 
these varied pleasures of the spectator the intellectual 
life can offer you but one satisfaction, for all its promises 
are reducible simply to this, that you shall come at last, 
after infinite labour, into contact with some great reality 
— that you shall know, and do, in such sort that you will 
feel yourself on firm ground and be recognized — probably 
not much applauded, but yet recognized — as a fellow- 
labourer by other knowers and doers. Before you come 
to this, most of your present accomplishments will be 
abandoned by yourself as unsatisfactory and insufficient, 
but one or two of them will be turned to better account, 
and will give you after many years a tranquil self-respect, 
and, what is still rarer and better, a very deep and earnest 
reverence for the greatness which is above you. Severed 
from the vanities of the Illusory, you will live with the 
realities of knowledge, as one who has quitted the painted 
scenery of the theatre to listen by the eternal ocean or 
gaze at the granite hills. 






SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



319 



LETTER V. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO KEPT ENTIRELY OUT OF 
COMPANY. 

That Society which is frivolous in the mass contains individuals who 
are not frivolous — A piece of the author's early experience — 
Those who keep out of Society miss opportunities — People talk 
about what they have in common — That we ought to be tolerant 
of dulness — The loss to Society if superior men all held aloof 
— Utility of the gifted in general society — They ought not to 
submit to expulsion. 

I willingly concede all that you say against fashionable 
society as a whole. It is, as you say, frivolous, bent on 
amusement, incapable of attention sufficiently prolonged 
to grasp any serious subject, and liable both to confusion 
and inaccuracy in the ideas which it hastily forms or 
easily receives. You do right, assuredly, not to let it 
waste your most valuable hours, but I believe also that 
you do wrong in keeping out. of it altogether. 

The society which seems so frivolous in masses con- 
tains individual members who, if you knew them better, 
would be able and willing to render you the most efficient 
intellectual help, and you miss this help by restricting 
yourself exclusively to books. Nothing can replace the 
conversation of living men and women ; not even the 
richest literature can replace it. 

Many years ago I was thrown by accident amongst a 
certain society of Englishmen who, when they were all 
together, never talked about anything worth talking 
about. Their general conversations were absolutely 
empty and null, and I concluded, as young men so 
easily conclude, that those twenty or thirty gentlemen 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
V. 



Society 

frivolous in 

the mass. 



Superiority 

0/ 

individual 

members 0/ 

society. 



A company 

0/ 
Englishmen, 



320 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Clever and 

interesti7ig 

members of 

a didl 

compci}iy. 



English 
dread of a 
general 
conversa- 
tion 



What is 
missed by 
keeping oat 
of society. 



had not half a dozen ideas amongst them. A little re- 
flection might have reminded me that my own talk was 
no better than theirs, and consequently that there might 
be others in the company who also knew more and 
thought more than they expressed. I found out, by ac- 
cident, after a while, that some of these men had more 
than common culture in various directions ; one or two 
had travelled far, and brought home the results of much 
observation ; one or two had read largely, and with 
profit ; more than one had studied a science ; five or 
six had seen a great deal of the world. It was a youth- 
ful mistake to conclude that, because their general con- 
versation was very dull, the men were dull individually. 
The general conversations of English society are dull ; 
it is a national characteristic. But the men themselves 
are individually often very well informed, and quite capa- 
ble of imparting their information to a single interested 
listener. The art is to be that listener. Englishmen 
have the greatest dread of producing themselves in the 
semi-publicity of a general conversation, because they 
fear that their special topics may not be cared for by 
some of the persons present ;, but if you can get one of 
them into a quiet corner by himself, and humour his 
shyness with sufficient delicacy and tact, he will dis- 
burden his mind at last, and experience a relief in so 
doing. 

By keeping out of society altogether you miss these 
precious opportunities. The wise course is to mix as 
much with the world as may be possible without with- 
drawing too much time from your serious studies, but 
not to expect anything valuable from the general talk, 
which is nothing but a neutral medium in which intelli- 
gences float and move as yachts do in sea-water, and for 



S0C1L TV AND SOLITUDE. 



321 



which they ought not to be held individually responsible. 
The talk of Society answers its purpose if it simply per- 
mits many different people to come together without 
clashing, and the purpose of its conventions is the avoid- 
ance of collision. In England the small talk is heavy, 
like water ; in France it is light as air ; in both countries 
it is a medium and no more. 

Society talks, by preference, about amusements ; it 
does so because when people meet for recreation they 
wish to relieve their minds from serious cares, and also 
for the practical reason that Society must talk about 
what its members have in common, and their amuse- 
ments are more in common than their work. As M. 
Thiers recommended the republican form of govern- 
ment in France on the ground that it was the form which 
divided his countrymen least, so a polite and highly 
civilized society chooses for the subject of general con- 
versation the topic which is least likely to separate the 
different people who are present. It almost always happens 
that the best topic having this recommendation is some 
species of amusement ; since amusements are easily learnt 
outside the business of life, and we are all initiated into 
them in youth. 

For these reasons I think that we ought to be extremely 
tolerant of the dulness or frivolity which may seem to 
prevail in any numerous company, and not to conclude 
too hastily that the members of it are in any degree more 
dull or frivolous than ourselves. It is unfortunate, cer- 
tainly, that the art of general conversation is not so suc- 
cessfully cultivated as it might be, and there are reasons 
for believing that our posterity will surpass us in this 
respect, because as culture increases the spirit of tolera- 
tion increases with it, so that the great questions of politics 

Y 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Conver~ 

sation runs 

chiefly on 

amuse- 

ments. 



That we 
ought to he 
toiera.7it oj 

dulness. 



322 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
V. 

Use of 

general 

cotiversa- 

tion. 



Effect upon 
Society if 

all superior 

people 

•withdrew 

/rem it. 



and religion, in which all are interested, may be discussed 
more safely than they could be at the present day, by 
persons of different ways of thinking. But even the sort 
of general conversation we have now, poor as it may seem, 
still sufficiently serves as a medium for human intercourse, 
and permits us to meet on a common ground where we 
may select at leisure the agreeable or instructive friends 
that our higher intellect needs, and without whom the 
intellectual life is one of the ghastliest of solitudes. 

And now permit me to add a few observations on 
another aspect of this subject, which is not without its 
importance. 

Let us suppose that everyone of rather more than 
ordinary capacity and culture were to act as you yourself 
are acting, and withdraw entirely from general society. 
Let us leave out of consideration for the present the loss 
to their private culture which would be the consequence 
of missing every opportunity for forming new intellectual 
friendships. Let us consider, this time, what would be 
the consequence to Society itself. 

If all the cultivated men were withdrawn from it, the 
general tone of Society would inevitably descend much 
lower even than it is at present ; it would sink so low that 
the whole national intellect would undergo a sure and 
inevitable deterioration. It is plainly the duty of men 
situated as you are, who have been endowed by nature 
with superior faculties, and who have enlarged them by 
the acquisition of knowledge, to preserve Society by their 
presence from an evil so surely prolific of bad conse- 
quences. If Society is less narrow, and selfish, and into- 
lerant, and apathetic than it used to be, it is because they 
who are the salt of the earth have not disdained to mix 
with its grosser and earthier elements. All the improve- 






SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



323 



PART IX. 

LETTiiR 



A t tract ion 

0/ superior 

minds. 



Effect of 
a single 

gifted 
person. 



merit in public sentiment, and the advancement in general 
knowledge which have marked the course of recent gene- 
rations, are to be attributed to the wholesome influence of 
men who could think and feel, and who steadily exer- 
cised, often quite obscurely, yet not the less usefully in 
their time and place, the subtle but powerful attraction of 
the greater mind over the less. Instead of complaining 
that people are ignorant and frivolous, we ought to go 
amongst them and lead them to the higher life. " 1 
know not how it is," said one in a dull circle to a more 
gifted friend who entered it occasionally, " when we are 
left to ourselves we are all lamentably stupid, but when- 
ever you are kind enough to come amongst us we all talk 
very much better, and of things that are well worth talking 
about." The gifted man is always welcome, if only he 
will stoop to conquer, and forget himself to give light and 
heat to others. The low Philistinism of many a provin- 
cial town is due mainly to the shy reserve of the one or c °ffrVserv" 
two superior men who fancy that they cannot amalgamate 
with the common intellect of the place. 

Not only would I advocate a little patient condescen- 
sion, but even .something of the sturdier temper which 
will not be driven out. Are the Philistines to have all 
the talk to themselves for ever ; are they to rehearse their 
stupid old platitudes without the least fear of contradic- 
tion ? How long, O Lord, how long ? Let us resolve 
that even in general society they shall not eternally have 
things their own way. Somebody ought to have the 
courage to enlighten them even at their own tables, and 
in the protecting presence of their admiring wives and 
daughters 



Philistines 

ought not to 

hnue things 

all their own 

way. 



y 2 



3 2 4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Vee soils. 



Both society 

and solitude 

are 

necessary 



LETTER VI. 



TO A FRIEND WHO KINDLY WARNED THE AUTHOR OF THE BAD 

EFFECTS OF SOLITUDE. 

Va softs — Society and solitude alike necessary — The use of each— In 
solitude we know ourselves —Montaigne as a book-buyer — Com- 
pensations of solitude — Description of one who loved and sought 
it — How men are driven into solitude — Cultivated people in the 
provinces — Use of solitude as a protection for rare and delicate 
natures— Shelley's dislike to general society — Wordsworth and 
Turner — Sir Isaac Newton's repugnance to society — Auguste 
Comte — His systematic isolation and unshakable firmness of 
purpose — Milton and Bunyan — The solitude which is really 
injurious — Painters and authors — An ideal division of life. 

You cry to me Vce solis ! and the cry seems not the less 
loud and stirring that it comes in the folds of a letter. 
Just at first it quite startled and alarmed me, and made 
me strangely dissatisfied with my life and work ; but 
farther reflection has been gradually reconcilin 6 me ever 
since, and now I feel cheerful again, and in a humour to 
answer you. 

Woe unto him that is atone ! This has been often said, 
but the studious recluse may answer, Woe unto him that 
is never alone and cannot bear to be alone ! 

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we 
need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and 
rest. I thank heaven for a thousand pleasant and pro- 
fitable conversations with acquaintances and friends ; I 
thank heaven also, and not less gratefully, for thousands 
of sweet hours that have passed in solitary thought or 
labour, under the silent stars. 

Society is necessary to give us our share and place in 
the collective life of humanity, but solitude is necessary 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3 2 5 



to the maintenance of the individual life. Society is to 
the individual what travel and commerce are to a nation; 
whilst solitude represents the home life of the nation, 
during which it develops its especial originality and 
genius. 

The life of the perfect hermit, and that of those per- 
sons who feel themselves nothing individually, and have 
no existence but what they receive from others, are alike 
imperfect lives. The perfect life is like that of a ship of 
war which has its own place in the fleet and can share 
in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone 
in the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong 
to Society, to have our place in it, and yet to be capable 
of a complete individual existence outside of it. 

Which of the two is the grander, the ship in the dis- 
ciplined fleet, arranged in order of battle, or the ship 
alone in the tempest, a thousand miles from land ? The 
truest grandeur of the ship is neither in one nor the 
other, but in the capacity for both. What would that 
captain merit who either had not seamanship enough to 
work under the eye of the admiral, or else had not suffi- 
cient knowledge of navigation to be trusted out of the 
range of signals ? 

I value society for the abundance of ideas that it 
brings before us, like carriages in a frequented street ; but 
I value solitude for sincerity and peace, and for the better 
understanding of the thoughts that are truly ours. Only 
in solitude do we learn our inmost nature and its needs. 
He who has lived for some great space of existence apart 
from the tumult of the world, has discovered the vanity 
of the things for which he has no natural aptitude or 
gift — their relative vanity, I mean, their uselessness to 
himself, personally ; and at the same time he has learned 



PART IX 

LKTTER 



The perfect 
life. 



Uses of 
solitude. 



326 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Montaigne 
as a book- 
buyer. 



Sincerity 
and leisure. 



A recluse- 



what is truly precious and good for him. Surely this is 
knowledge of inestimable value to a man : surely it is 
a great thing for anyone in the bewildering confusion of 
distracting toils and pleasures to have found out the 
labour that he is most fit for and the pleasures that 
satisfy him best. Society so encourages us in affectations 
that it scarcely leaves us a chance of knowing our own 
minds ; but in solitude this knowledge comes of itself, 
and delivers us from innumerable vanities. 

Montaigne tells us that at one time he bought books 
from ostentation, but that afterwards he bought only 
such books as he wanted for his private reading. In the 
first of these conditions of mind we may observe the 
influence of society ; in the second the effect of solitude. 
The man of the world does not consult his own intel- 
lectual needs, but considers the eyes of his visitors ; the 
solitary student takes his literature as a lonely traveller 
takes food when he is hungry, without reference to the 
ordered courses of public hospitality. 

It is a traditional habit of mankind to see only the dis- 
advantages of solitude, without considering its compen- 
sations ; but there are great compensations, some of the 
greatest being negative. The lonely man is lord of his 
own hours and of his own purse ; his days are long and 
unbroken, he escapes from every form of ostentation, 
and may live quite simply and sincerely in great calm 
breadths of leisure. I knew one who passed his summers 
in the heart of a vast forest, in a common thatched cot- 
tage with furniture of common deal, and for this retreat 
he quitted very gladly a rich fine house in the city. He 
wore nothing but old clothes, read only a few old books, 
without the least regard to the opinions of the learned, 
and did not take in a newspaper. On the wall of his 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



327 



habitation he inscribed with a piece of charcoal a quota- 
tion from De Senancour to this effect : " In the world a 
man lives in his own age ; in solitude, in all the ages/' 
I observed in him the effects of a lonely life, and he 
greatly aided my observations by frankly communicating 
his experiences. That solitude had become inexpres- 
sibly dear to him, but he admitted one evil consequence 
of it, which was an increasing unfitness for ordinary 
society, though he cherished a few tried friendships, and 
was grateful to those who loved him and could enter into 
his humour. He had acquired a horror of towns and 
crowds, not from nervousness, but because he felt im- 
prisoned and impeded in his thinking, which needed the 
depths of the forest, the venerable trees, the communica- 
tion with primaeval nature, from which he drew a myste- 
rious yet necessary nourishment for the peculiar activity 
of his mind. I found that his case answered very exactly 
to the sentence he quoted from De Senancour ; he lived 
less in his own age than others do, but he had a fine 
compensation in a strangely vivid understanding of other 
ages. Like De Senancour, he had a strong sense of the 
transitoriness of what is transitory, and a passionate pre- 
ference for all that the human mind conceives to be rela- 
tively or absolutely permanent. This trait was very 
observable in his talk about the peoples of antiquity, and 
in the delight he took in dwelling rather upon everything 
which they had in common with ourselves than on those 
differences which are more obvious to the modern spirit. 
His temper was grave and earnest, but unfailingly cheer- 
ful, and entirely free from any tendency to bitterness. 
The habits of his life would have been most unfavourable 
to the development of a man of business, of a statesman, 
of a leader in practical enterprise, but they were certainly 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Experience 
0/ a recluse. 



Compensa.' 
tions. 



328 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
VI. 



The strength 
that comes 
in solitude. 



Men are 

driven into 

solitude. 



Culture 
isolates- 



not unfavourable to the growth of a tranquil and com- 
prehensive intellect, capable of "just judgment and high- 
hearted patriotism." He had not the spirit of the news- 
papers, he did not live intensely in the present, but he 
had the spirit which has animated great poets, and saints, 
and sages, and far-seeing teachers of humanity. Not in 
vain had he lived alone with Nature, not in vain had 
he watched in solemn twilights and witnessed many a 
dawn. There is, there is a strength that comes to us 
in solitude from that shadowy, awful Presence that 
frivolous crowds repel ! 

Solitude may be and is sometimes deliberately accepted 
or chosen, but far more frequently men are driven into it 
by Nature and by Fate. They go into solitude to escape 
the sense of isolation which is always most intolerable 
when there are many voices round us in loud dissonance 
with our sincerest thought. It is a great error to en- 
courage in young people the love of noble culture in the 
hope that it may lead them more into what is called good 
society. High culture always isolates, always drives men 
out of their class and makes it more difficult for them to 
share naturally and easily the common class-life around 
them. They seek the few companions who can under- 
stand them, and when these are not to be had within 
any traversable distance, they sit and work alone. Very 
possibly too, in some instances, a superior culture may 
compel the possessor of it to hold opinions too far in 
advance of the opinions prevalent around him to be 
patiently listened to or. tolerated, and then he must either 
disguise them, which is always highly distasteful to a man 
of honour, or else submit to be treated as an enemy to 
human welfare. Cultivated people who live in London 
(their true home) need never condemn themselves to 






SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



3 2 9 



solitude from this cause, but in the provinces there are 
many places where it is not easy for them to live sociably 
without a degree of reserve that is more wearisome than 
solitude itself. And however much pains you take to 
keep your culture well in the background, it always 
makes you rather an object of suspicion to people who 
have no culture. They perceive that you are reserved, 
they know that very much of what passes in your mind 
is a mystery to them, and this feeling makes them uneasy 
in your presence, even afraid of you, and not indisposed 
to find a compensation for this uncomfortable feeling in 
sarcasms behind your back. Unless you are gifted with 
a truly extraordinary power of conciliating goodwill, you 
are not likely to get on happily, for long together, with 
people who feel themselves your inferiors. The very 
utmost skill and caution will hardly avail to hide all your 
modes of thought. Something of your higher philosophy 
will escape in an unguarded moment, and give offence 
because it will seem foolish or incomprehensible to your 
audience. There is no safety for you but in a timely 
withdrawal, either to a society that is prepared to under- 
stand you, or else to a solitude where your intellectual 
superiorities will neither be a cause of irritation to others 
nor of vexation to yourself. 

Like all our instincts, the instinct of solitude has its 
especial purpose, which appears to be the protection of 
rare and delicate natures from the commonplace world 
around them. Though recluses are considered by men 
of the world to be doomed to inevitable incompetence, 
the fact is that many of them have reached the highest 
distinction in intellectual pursuits. If Shelley had not 
disliked general society as he did, the originality of his 
own living and thinking would have been less complete ; 



IX. 



PART 

LETTER 
VI. 



That 

cultivated 
people 
inspire 

dis.rust- 



The instinct 

of solitude. 

Its use. 



33° 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 
VI. 



Shelley's 
dread of 
Society. 



Shelley's 
passion for 
retirement. 



Wordsworth 
and Turner 



Painters. 



the influences of mediocre people, who, of course, are 
always in the majority, would have silently but surely 
operated to the destruction of that unequalled and per- 
sonal delicacy of imagination to which we owe what is 
inimitable in his poetry. In the last year of his life, he 
said to Trelawny of Mary, his second wife, " She can't 
bear solitude, nor I society — the quick coupled with the 
dead." Here is a piteous prayer of his to be delivered 
from a party that he dreaded : " Mary says she will have 
a party ! There are English singers here, the Sinclairs, 
and she will ask them, and everyone she or you know. 
Oh the horror ! For pity go to Mary and intercede for 
me 1 I will submit to any other species of torture than 
that of being bored to death by idle ladies and gentle- 
men." Again, he writes to Mary : " My greatest delight 
would be utterly to desert all human society. I would 
retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the 
sea ; would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the 
flood-gates of the world. I would read no reviews and 
talk with no authors. If I dared trust my imagination 
it would tell me that there are one or two chosen com- 
panions beside yourself whom I should desire. But to 
this I would not listen ; where two or three are gathered 
together, the devil is among them." At Marlow he knew 
little of his neighbours. " I am not wretch enough," he 
said, "to tolerate an acquaintance." Wordsworth and 
Turner, if less systematic in their isolation, were still 
solitary workers, and much of the peculiar force and 
originality of their performance is due to their indepen- 
dence of the people about them. Painters are especial 
sufferers from the visits of talkative peopfe who know 
little or nothing of the art they talk about, and yet who 
have quite influence enough to disturb the painter's mind 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



33i 



by proving to him that his noblest thoughts are surest 
to be misunderstood. Men of science, too, find solitude 
favourable to their peculiar work, because it permits the 
concentration of their powers during long periods of time. 
Newton had a great repugnance to society, and even to 
notoriety — a feeling which is different, and in men of 
genius more rare. No one can doubt, however, that 
Newton's great intellectual achievements were due in 
some measure to this peculiarity of his temper, which 
permitted him to ripen them in the sustained tranquillity 
necessary to difficult investigations. Auguste Comte 
isolated himself not only from preference but on system, 
and whatever may have been the defects of his remark- 
able mind, and the weakness of its ultimate decay, it is 
certain that his amazing command over vast masses of 
heterogeneous material would have been incompatible 
with any participation in the passing interests of the 
world. Nothing in intellectual history has ever exceeded 
the unshakable firmness of purpose with which he dedi- 
cated his whole being to the elaboration of the Positive 
philosophy. He sacrificed everything to it — position, 
time, health, and all the amusements and opportunities 
of society. He found that commonplace acquaintances 
disturbed his work and interfered with his mastery of it, 
so he resolutely renounced them. Others have done 
great things in isolation that was not of their own 
choosing, yet none the less fruitful for them and for man- 
kind. It was not when Milton saw most of the world, 
but in the forced retirement of a man who had lost 
health and eyesight, and whose party was hopelessly de- 
feated, that he composed the " Paradise Lost." It was 
during tedious years of imprisonment that Bunyan wrote 
his immortal allegory. Many a genius has owed his best 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Neiulon's 
repugnrnci 

to society. 



Self- 
isolation 0/ 
A ugttstt 
Comte. 



Milton- 



Bunyan. 



332 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART IX. 

LETTER 



Discourage- 
ments of 
isolation- 



Country life. 



An ideal 

division of 

time. 



opportunities to poverty, because poverty had happily 
excluded him from society, and so preserved him from 
time-devouring exigencies and frivolities. 

The solitude which is really injurious is the severance 
from all who are capable of understanding us. Painters 
say that they cannot work effectively for very long to- 
gether when separated from the society of artists, and 
that they must return to London, or Paris, or Rome, to 
avoid an oppressive feeling of discouragement which 
paralyses their productive energy. Authors are more 
fortunate, because all cultivated people are society for 
them ; yet even authors lose strength and agility of 
thought when too long deprived of a genial intellectual 
atmosphere. In the country you meet with cultivated 
individuals ; but we need more than this, we need those 
general conversations in which every speaker is worth 
listening to. The life most favourable to culture would 
have its times of open and equal intercourse with the 
best minds, and also its periods of retreat. My ideal 
would be a house in London, not far from one or two 
houses that are so full of light and warmth that it is a 
liberal education to have entered them, and a solitary 
tower on some island of the Hebrides, with no com- 
panions but the sea-gulls and the thundering surges of 
the Atlantic. One such island I know well, and it is 
before my mind's eye, clear as a picture, whilst I am 
writing. It stands in the very entrance of a fine salt- 
water loch, rising above two hundred feet out of the 
water and setting its granite front steep against the 
western ocean. When the evenings are clear you can 
see Staffa and Iona like blue clouds between you and 
the sunset ; and on your left, close at hand, the granite 
i hills of Mull, with Ulva to the right across the narrow 



SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. 



333 



strait. It was the dream of my youth to build a tower 
there, with three or four little rooms in it, and walls as 
strong as a lighthouse. There have been more foolish 
dreams, and there have been less competent teachers 
than the tempests that would have roused me and the 
calms that would have brought me peace. If any serious 
thought, if any noble inspiration might have been hoped 
for, surely it would have been there, where only the 
clouds and waves were transient, but the ocean before 
me, and the stars above, and the mountains on either 
hand, were emblems and evidences of eternity. 

Note. — There is a passage in Scott's novel, " The Pirate," which 
illustrates what has been said in this letter about the necessity for 
concealing superior culture in the presence of less intellectual com- 
panions, and I quote it the more willingly that Scott was so remark- 
ably free from any morbid aversion to society, and so capable of 
taking a sincere interest in every human bting. 

Cleveland is speaking to Minna : — 

"I thought over my former story, and saw that seeming more 
brave, skilful, and enterprising than others had gained me command 
and respect, and that seeming more gently nurtured and more 
civilized than they had made them envy and hate me as a being of 
another species I bargained with myself then, that since I could not 
lay aside my superiority of intellect and education, I would do my best 
to disgztise, and to sink, in the rude seaman, all appearance of better 
feeling and better accomplishments" 

A similar policy is often quite as necessary in the society of 
landsmen. 



PART IX. 

LE [ i l_K 
VI. 

A solitude 

in the 
Hebrides. 



Quotation 
from 

Sir Waller 
Scott. 



PART X. 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



LETTER I. 



PART X. 

LETTER 



Mr. Gallon's 
advke to 
travellers- 



TO A YOUNG AUTHOR WHILST HE WAS WRITING HIS FIRST 

BOOK. 

Mr. Galton's advice to young travellers — That we ought to interest 
ourselves in the progress of a journey — The same rule applicable 
in intellectual things— Woman in the cabin of a canal boat — 
Working hastily for temporary purposes — Fevered eagerness to 
get work done — Beginners have rarely acquired firm intellectual 
habits — Knowing the range of our own powers — The coolness of 
accomplished artists — Advice given by Ingres — Balzac's method 
of work — Scott, Horace Vernet, John Phillip — Decided workers 
are deliberate workers. 

I read the other day, in Galton's " Art of Travel," a 
little bit which concerns you and all of us, but I made 
the extract in my commonplace-book for your benefit 
rather than my own, because the truth it contains has 
been "borne in upon me" by my own experience, so 
that what Mr. Galton says did not give me a new con- 
viction, but only confirmed me in an old one. He is 
speaking to explorers who have not done so much in that 
way as he has himself, and though the subject of his 



1. 



INTELLECTUAL II YGIENICS. 



335 



advice is the conduct of an exploring party (in the wilds 
of Australia, for example) the advice itself is equally 
useful if taken metaphorically, and applied to the conduct 
of intellectual labours and explorations of all kinds. 

" Interest yourself," says Mr. Galton, " chiefly in the 
progress of your journey, and do not look forward to its 
end with eagerness. It is better to think of a return to 
civilization, not as an end to hardship and a haven from 
ill, but as a thing to be regretted, and as a close to an 
adventurous and pleasant life. In this way, risking less, 
you will insensibly creep on, making connections, and 
learning the capabilities of the country as you advance, 
which will be found invaluable in the case of a hurried 
or a disastrous return. And thus, when some months 
have passed by, you will look back with surprise on the 
great distance travelled over ; for if you average only 
three miles a day, at the end of the year you will have 
advanced 1,000, which is a very considerable exploration. 
The fable of the hare and the tortoise seems. expressly 
intended for travellers over wide and unknown tracts." 

Yes, we ought to interest ourselves chiefly in the pro- 
gress of our work, and not to look forward to its end 
with eagerness. That eagerness of which Mr. Galton 
speaks has spoiled many a piece of work besides a 
geographical exploration, and it not only spoils work, 
but it does worse, it spoils life also. How am I to enjoy 
this year as I ought, if I am continually wishing it were 
over ? A truly intellectual philosophy must begin by 
recognizing the fact that the intellectual paths are infi- 
nitely long, that there will always be new horizons behind 
the horizon that is before us, and that we must accept a 
gradual advance as the law of our intellectual life. It is 
our business to move forwards, but we ought to do so 



part x. 

LETTER 

I. 



Interest in 

the progress 

of work. 



33$ 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
I. - 

A 

bargeinari 's 

wife. 



Feverish 
eagerness. 



Temporary 
purposes. 



without any greater feeling of hurry than that which 
affects the most stationary of minds. Not a bad example 
for us is a bargeman's wife in a canal-boat. She moves ; 
movement is the law of her life ; yet she is as tranquil 
in her little cabin as any goodwife on shore, brewing her 
tea and preparing her buttered toast without ever think- 
ing about getting to the end of her journey. For if that 
voyage were ended, another would always succeed to it, 
and another ! In striking contrast to the unhurried 
bargeman's wife in her cabin is an irritable Frenchman 
in the corner of a diligence, looking at his watch every 
half-hour, and wishing that the dust and rattle were over, 
and he were in his own easy-chair at home. Those who 
really lead the intellectual life, and have embraced it for 
better and for worse, are like the bargeman's wife ; but 
those who live the life from time to time only, for some 
special purpose, wishing to be rid of it as soon as that 
purpose is accomplished, are like the sufferer in the 
purgatory, of the diligence. Is there indeed rea'ly any 
true intellectual life at all when every hour of labour is 
spoiled by a feverish eagerness to be at the end of the 
projected task? You cannot take a bit out of another 
man's life and live it, without having lived the previous 
years that led up to it, without having also the assured 
hopes for the years that lie beyond. The attempt is 
constantly made by amateurs of all kinds, and by men 
of temporary purposes, and it always fails. The amateur 
says when he awakes on some fine summer morning, and 
draws up his blind, and looks out on the dewy fields : 
" Ah, the world of nature is beautiful to-day ; what if I 
were to lead the life of an artist ? " And after break- 
fast he seeks up his old box of watercolour and his block- 
book, and stool, and white umbrella, and what not, and 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



30/ 



sallies forth, and fixes himself on the edge of the forest 
or the banks of the amber stream. The day that he 
passes there looks like an artist's day, yet it is not. It 
has not been preceded by the three or four thousand 
days which ought to have led up to it ; it is not strong in 
the assured sense of present skill, in the calm knowledge 
that the hours will bear good fruit. So the chances are 
that there will be some hurry, and fretfulness, and im- 
patience, under the shadow of that white parasol, and 
also that when the day is over there will be a disappoint- 
ment. You cannot put an artist's day into the life of 
anyone but an artist. 

Our impatiences come mainly, I think, from an 
amateurish doubt about our own capacity, which is ac- 
companied by a fevered eagerness to see the work done, 
because we are tormented both by hopes and fears so 
long as it is in progress. We have fears that it may not 
turn out as it ought to do, and we have at the same 
time hopes for its success. Both these causes produce 
eagerness, and deprive us of the tranquillity which dis- 
tinguishes the thorough workman, and which is necessary 
to thoroughness in the work itself. Now please observe 
that I am not advising you to set aside these hopes and 
fears by an effort of the will ; when you have them they 
are the inevitable result of your state of culture, and the 
will can no more get rid of them than it can get rid of 
an organic disease. When you have a limited amount 
of power and of culture, and are not quite clear in your 
own mind as to where the limits lie, it is natural on the 
one hand that you should fear the insufficiency of what 
you possess, and on the other that in more sanguine 
moments you should indulge in hopes which are only 
extravagant because your powers have not yet been accu- 



part x 

LETTER 
I. 



Causes of 
impatience. 



Doubts of 
our own 
capacity. 

Fears and 
hopes. 



338 



THE IXTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
I. 



Eagerness of 

young 

authors. 



Unwhole- 
some 
excitement. 



Coolness of 
old hands. 



rately measured. You will alternate between fear and 
hope, according to the temporary predominance of sad- 
dening or cheerful ideas, but both these feelings will urge 
you to complete the work in hand, that you may see 
your own powers reflected in it, and measure them more 
exactly. This is the main cause of the eagerness of young 
authors, and the reason why they often launch work upon 
the sea of publicity which is sure to go immediately to 
the bottom, from the unworkmanlike haste with which it 
has been put together. But beyond this there is another 
cause, which is, that beginners in literature have rarely 
acquired firm intellectual habits, that they do not yet 
lead the tranquil intellectual life, so that such a piece of 
work as the composition of a book keeps them in an 
unwholesome state of excitement. When you feel this 
coming upon you, pray remember Mr. Galton's wise 
traveller in unknown tracts, or the bargeman's wife in 
the canal-boat. 

Amongst the many advantages of experience, one of 
the most valuable is that we come to know the range of 
our own powers, and if we are wise we keep contentedly 
within them. This relieves us from the malady of eager- 
ness ; we know pretty accurately beforehand what our 
work will be when it is done, and therefore we are not in 
a hurry to see it accomplished. The coolness of old hands 
in all departments of labour is due in part to the cooling 
of the temperament by age, but it is due even more to 
the fulness of acquired experience, for we do not find 
middle-aged men so cool in situations where they feel 
themselves incompetent. The conduct of the most ex- 
perienced painters in the management of their work is a 
good example of this masterly coolness, because we can 
see them painting in their studios whereas we cannot so 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



339 



easily see or so justly estimate the coolness of scientific 
or literary workmen. A painter of great experience will 
have, usually, several pictures at a time upon his easels, 
and pass an hour upon one, or an hour upon the other, 
simply as the state of the pigment invites him, without 
ever being tempted to risk anything by hurrying a process. 
The ugly preparatory daubing which irritates the impa- 
tience of the beginner does not disturb his equanimity; 
he has laid it with a view to the long-foreseen result, and 
it satisfies him temporarily as the right thing for the time 
being. If you know what is the right thing for the time 
being, and always do it, you are sure of the calm of the 
thorough workman. All his touches, except the very 
last touch on each work, are touches of preparation, 
leading gradually up to his result. Ingres used to counsel 
nis pupils to sketch always, to sketch upon and within 
the first sketch till the picture came right in the end ; and 
this was strictly Balzac's method in literature. The literary 
and artistic labours of these two men did not proceed 
so much upon the principle of travelling as upon that of 
cultivation. They took an idea in the rough, as a settler 
takes a tract from wild nature, and then they went 
over it repeatedly, each time pushing the cultivation of it 
a little farther. Scott, Horace Vernet, John Phillip, and 
many others, have worked rather on the principle of 
travelling, passing over the ground once, and leaving it, 
never coming back again to correct the mistakes of 
yesterday. Both methods of work require deliberation, 
but the latter needs it in the supreme degree. All very 
decided workers, men who did not correct, have been 
at the same time very deliberate workers— rapid, in the 
sense of accomplishing much in the course of the year, 
or the life, but cautious and slow and observant whilst 

Z 2 



PART X. 

LETTER 



Method 

of an 

experienced 

painter. 



Ingres and 
Balzac. 



Scott and 
others. 



Deid^d 
workers. 



340 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 



LETTER 
II. 



Depressing 
effects of 
dulness. 



they actually laboured, thinking out very carefully every 
sentence before they wrote it, every touch of paint before 
they laid it. 



LETTER II. 

TO A STUDENT IN THE FIRST ARDOUR" OF INTELLECTUAL 
AMBITION. 

The first freshness— Why should it rot be preserved ?— The dulness 
of the intellectual — Fictions and false promises — Ennui in work 
itself — Diirer's engraving of Melancholy — Scott about Dryden — 
Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth — Humboldt, Cuvier, Goethe — 
Tennyson's "Maud" — Preventives of ennui — Hard study for 
limited times — The ennui of jaded faculties. 

I have been thinking about you frequently of late, and 
the burden or refrain of my thoughts has been " What a 
blessing he has in that first freshness, if only he could 
keep it ! " But now I am beginning more hopefully to 
ask myself, " Why should he not keep it?" 

It would be an experiment worth trying, so to order 
your intellectual life, that however stony and thorny your 
path might be, however difficult and arduous, it should at 
all events never be dull ; or, to express what I mean more 
accurately, that you yourself should never feel the de- 
pressing influences of dulness during the years when 
they are most to be dreaded. I want you to live steadily 
and happily in your intellectual labours, even to the 
natural close of existence, and my best wish for you is 
that you may escape a long and miserable malady which 
brain-workers very commonly suffer from when the first 
dreams of youth have been disappointed — a malady in 
which the intellectual desires are feeble, the intellectual 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



341 



hopes are few ; whose victim, if he has still resolution 
enough to learn anything, acquires without satisfaction, 
and, if he has courage to create, has neither pride nor 
pleasure in his creations. 

If I were to sing the praises of knowledge as they 
have been so often sung by louder harps than mine, I 
might avoid so dreary a theme. It is easy to pretend to 
believe that the intellectual life is always sure to be inte- 
resting and delightful, but the truth is that, either from 
an unwise arrangement of their work, or from mental or 
physical causes which we will investigate to some extent 
before we have done with the subject, many men whose 
occupations are reputed to be amongst the most inte- 
resting have suffered terribly from ennui, and that not 
during a week or two at a time, but for consecutive years 
and years. 

There is a class of books written with the praiseworthy 
intention of stimulating young men to»intellectual labour, 
in which this danger of the intellectual life is systemati- 
cally ignored. It is assumed in these books that the 
satisfactions of intellectual labour are certain; that 
although it may not always, or often, result in outward 
and material prosperity, its inward joys will never fail. 
Promises of this kind cannot safely be made to anyone. 
The satisfactions of intellectual riches are not more sure 
than the satisfactions of material riches ; the feeling of 
dull indifference which often so mysteriously clouds the 
life of the rich man in the midst of the most elaborate 
contrivances for his pleasure and amusement, has its 
exact counterpart in the lives of men who are rich in the 
best treasures of the mind, and who have infinite intel- 
lectual resources. However brilliant your ability, how 
ever brave and persistent your industry, however vast 



PARI 1 X. 

LETTER 



Fiction and 
truth. 



Ennui. 



Thai intel- 
lectual satis- 
factions are 

not sure. 



342 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
II. 



Ennui. 



Dftrer's 
" Melen- 
colia" 



your knowledge, there is always this dreadful possibility 
of ennui. People tell you that work is a specific against 
it, but many a man has worked steadily and earnestly, 
and suffered terribly from ennui all the time that he was> 
working, although the labour was of his own choice, the 
labour that he loved best, and for which Nature evidently 
intended him. The poets, from Solomon downwards, 
have all of them, so far as I know, given utterance in one 
page or another of their writings to this feeling of dreary 
dissatisfaction, and Albert Diirer, in his "Melencolia," 
illustrated it. It is plain that the robust female figure 
which has exercised the ingenuity of so many commen- 
tators is not melancholy either from weakness of the 
body or vacancy of the mind. She is strong and she is 
learned ; yet, though the plumes of her wings are mighty, 
she sits heavily and listlessly, brooding amidst the im- 
plements of suspended labour, on the shore of a wave- 
less sea. The truth is that Diirer engraved the melan- 
choly that he himself only too intimately knew. This is 
not the dulness of the ignorant and incapable, whose 
minds are a blank because they have no ideas, whose 
hands are listless for want of an occupation ; it is the 
sadness of the most learned, the most intelligent, the 
most industrious ; the weary misery of those who are rich 
in the attainments of culture, who have the keys of the 
chambers of knowledge, and wings to bear them to the 
heaven of the ideal. If you counsel this " Melencolia " 
to work that she may be merry, she will answer that she 
knows the uses of labour and its vanity, and The precise 
amount of profit that a man hath of all his labour which 
he taketh under the sun. Ail things are full of labour, 
she will tell you ; and in much wisdom is much grief, 
and he that increased! knowledge increaseth sorrow. 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS, 



343 



Can we escape this brooding melancholy of the great 
workers — has any truly intellectual person escaped it 
ever ? The question can never be answered with perfect 
certainty, because we can never quite accurately know 
the whole truth about the life of another. I have known 
several men of action, almost entirely devoid of intel- 
lectual culture, who enjoyed an unbroken flow of animal 
energy, and were clearly free from the melancholy of 
Diirer ; but I never intimately knew a really cultivated 
person who had not suffered from it more or less, and 
the greatest sufferers were the most conscientious thinkers 
and students. Amongst the illustrious dead, it may be 
very safely answered that any poet who has described it 
has written from his own experience — a transient expe- 
rience it may be, yet his own. When Walter Scott, 
a-propos of Dryden, spoke of "the apparently causeless 
fluctuation of spirits incident to one doomed to labour 
incessantly in the feverish exercise of the imagination," 
and of that " sinking of spirit which follows violent 
mental exertion," is it not evident that his kindly under- 
standing of Dryden's case came from the sympathy of a 
fellow-labourer who knew by his own experience the 
gloomier and more depressing passages of the imaginative 
life ? It would be prudent perhaps to omit the mention 
of Byron, because some may attribute his sadness to his 
immorality ; and if I spoke of Shelley, they might answer 
that he was "sad because he was impious;" but the 
truth is, that quite independently of conduct, and even 
of belief, it was scarcely possible for natures so highly 
imaginative as these two, and so ethereally intellectual 
as one of the two, to escape those clouds of gloom 
which darken the intellectual life. Wordsworth was not 
immoral, Wordsworth was not unorthodox, yet he could 



part x. 

LETTER 
II. 



Prevalence 

of 

melancholy 

amongst 

cultivated 

people. 



Scott and 
Dryden- 



Byron. 
Shelley- 



Words- 
worth. 



344 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
II. 



Humboldt- 



Cuvier- 



Goethe. 



be as sad in his own sober way as Byron in the bitter- 
ness of his desolation, or Shelley in his tenderest wailing. 
The three men who seem to have been the least subject 
to the sadness of intellectual workers were Alexander 
Humboldt, Cuvier, and Goethe. Alexander Humboldt, 
so far as is known to us, lived always in a clear and 
cheerful daylight ; his appetite for learning was both 
strong and regular ; he embraced the intellectual life in 
his earliest manhood, and lived in it with an unhe- 
sitating singleness of purpose, to the limits of extreme 
old age. Cuvier was to the last a model student, of 
a temper at once most unflinching and most kind, 
happy in all his studies, happier still in his unequalled 
facility of mental self-direction. Goethe, as all know, 
lived a life of unflagging interest in each of the three 
great branches of intellectual labour. During the whole 
of his long life he was interested in literature, in which 
he was a master ; he was interested in science, in which 
he was a discoverer, and in art, of which he was 
an ardent though not practically successful student. 
His intellectual activity ceased only on rare occasions 
of painful illness or overwhelming affliction ; he does 
not seem to have asked himself ever whether knowledge 
was worth its cost; he was always ready to pay the 
appointed price of toil. He had no infirmity of intel- 
lectual doubt ; the powerful impulses from within assured 
him that knowledge was good for him, and he went to it 
urged by an unerring instinct, as a young salmon bred in 
the slime of a river seeks strength in the infinite sea. 
And yet, being a poet and a man of strong passions, 
Goethe did not altogether escape the green-sickness which 
afflicts the imaginative temperament, or he could never 
have written "Werther;" but he cured Himself very 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



345 



soon, and the author of " Werther " had no indulgence for 
Wertherism — indeed we are told that he grew ashamed 
of having written the book which inoculated the younger 
minds of Europe with that miserable disease. In our 
own time an illustrious poet has given in " Maud " a very 
perfect study of a young mind in a morbid condition, a 
mind having indeed the student-temper, but of a bad 
kind, that which comes not from the genuine love of 
study, but from sulky rage against the world. 

•' Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the 
worse. 
/ will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may pipe to his 
own." 

This kind of self-burial in one's library does not come 
from the love of literature. The recluse will not speak 
to his neighbour, yet needs human intercourse of some 
kind, and seeks it in reading, urged by an inward 
necessity. He feels no gratitude towards the winners 
of knowledge ; his morbid ill-nature depreciates the 
intellectual labourers : — 

H The man of science himself is fonder of glory and vain ; 
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor." 

What is the life such a spirit will choose for itself? 
Despising alike the ignorant and the learned, the acute- 
ness of the cultivated and the simplicity of the poor, in 
what form of activity or inaction will he seek what all 
men need, the harmony of a life well tuned ? 

" Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways ; 
Where, if I cannot be gay, let a passionless peace be my lot" 

There are many different morbid states of the mind, 



PART X. 

LETTER 
II. 



Tennyson's 
" Maud" 



346 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
II. 

The hero of 
" Maud." 



Precautions 

and 
preventives- 



and this of the hero of " Maud " is only one of them, but it 
is the commonest amongst intellectual or semi-intellectual 
young men. See how he has a little fit of momentary 
enthusiasm (all he is capable of) about a shell that 
suddenly and accidentally attracts his attention. How 
true to the morbid nature is that incident ! Unable to 
pursue any large and systematic observation, the diseased 
mind is attracted to things suddenly and accidentally, 
sees them out of all proportion, and then falls into the 
inevitable fit of scornful peevishness. 

" What is it ? A learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name : 
Let him name it who can." 

The question which concerns the world is, how this 
condition of the mind may be avoided. The cure Mr. 
Tennyson suggested was war ; but wars, though more 
frequent than is desirable, are not to be had always. 
And in your case, my friend, it is happily not a cure but 
a preventive that is needed. Let me recommend certain 
precautions which taken together are likely to keep you 
safe. Care for the physical health in the first place, for 
if there is a morbid mind the bodily organs are not 
doing their work as they ought to do. Next, for the 
mind itself, I would heartily recommend hard study, 
really hard study, taken very regularly but in very 
moderate quantity. The effect of it on the mind is as 
bracing as that of cold water on the body, but as you 
ought not to remain too long in the cold bath, so it is 
dangerous to study hard more than a short time every 
day. Do some work that is very difficult (such as 
reading some language that you have to puzzle out d 
coups de dictionnaire) two hours a day regularly, to brace 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



347 



the fighting power of the intellect, but let the rest of the 
day's work be easier. Acquire especially, if you pos- 
sibly can, the enviable faculty of getting entirely rid of 
your work in the intervals of it, and of taking a hearty 
interest in common things, in a garden, or stable, or 
dog-kennel, or farm. If the work pursues you — if what 
is called unconscious cerebration, which ought to go 
forward without your knowing it, becomes conscious 
cerebration, and bothers you, then you have been 
working beyond your cerebral strength, and you are 
not safe. 

An organization which was intended by Nature for 
the intellectual life cannot be healthy and happy without 
a certain degree of intellectual activity. Natures like 
those of Humboldt and Goethe need immense labours 
for their own felicity, smaller powers need less extensive 
labour. To all of us who have intellectual needs there 
is a certain supply of work necessary to perfect health. 
If we do less, we are in danger of that ennui which 
comes from want of intellectual exercise ; if we do more, 
we may suffer from that other ennui which is due to the 
weariness of the jaded faculties, and this is the more 
terrible of the two. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
II. 



Signs of 
over-work. 



Necessity for 
mental 
activity. 



348 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 



Dissatis- 
factio7i occa- 
sioned by 
the want of 
influence. 



LETTER III. 

TO AN INTELLECTUAL MAN WHO DESIRED AN OUTLET FOR HIS 

ENERGIES. 

Dissatisfaction of the intellectual when they have not an extensive 
influence — A consideration suggested to the author by Mr. 
Matthew Arnold — Each individual mind a portion of the 
national mind, which must rise or decline with the minds of 
which it is composed — Influence of a townsman in his town — 
Household influence — Charities and condescendences of the 
highly cultivated — A suggestion of M. Taine — Conversation 
with inferiors — How to make it interesting — That we ought to 
be satisfied with humble results and small successes. 

There is a very marked tendency amongst persons of 
culture to feel dissatisfied with themselves and their 
success in life when they do not exercise some direct 
and visible influence over a considerable portion of the 
public. To put the case in a more concrete form, it 
may be affirmed that if an intellectual young man does 
not exercise influence by literature, or by oratory, or by 
one of the most elevated forms of art, he is apt to think 
that his culture and intelligence are lost upon the world, 
and either to blame himself for being what he considers 
a failure, or else (and this is more common) to find fault 
with the world in general for not giving him a proper 
chance of making his abilities telL The facilities for 
obtaining culture are now so many and great, and within 
the reach of so many well-to-do people, that hundreds of 
persons become really very clever in various ways who 
would have remained utterly uncultivated had they lived 
in any previous century. A few of these distinguish 
themselves in literature and other pursuits which bring 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



549 



notoriety to the successful, but by far the greater number 
have to remain in positions of obscurity, often being 
clearly conscious that they have abilities and knowledge 
not much, if at all, inferior to the abilities and knowledge 
of some who have achieved distinction. The position of 
a clever man who remains obscure is, if he has ambition, 
rather trying to the moral fibre, but there are certain 
considerations which might help to give a direction to 
his energy and so procure him a sure relief, which reputa- 
tion too frequently fails to provide. 

The first consideration is one which was offered to me 
many years ago by Mr. Matthew Arnold, and which I 
can give, though from memory, very nearly in his own 
words. The multiplicity ^of things which make claim to 
the attention of the public is in these days such that it 
requires either uncommon strength of will or else the 
force of peculiar circumstances to make men follow any 
serious study to good result, and the great majority con- 
tent themselves with the general enlightenment of the 
epoch, which they get from newspapers and reviews. 
Hence the efforts of the intellectual produce little effect, 
and it requires either extraordinary talent or extraordinary 
fanaticism to awaken the serious interest of any con- 
siderable number of readers. Yet, in spite of these 
discouragements, we ought to remember that our labours, 
if not applauded by others, may be of infinite value to 
ourselves, and also that beyond this gain to the in- 
dividual, his culture is a gain to the nation, whether the 
nation formally recognizes it or not. For the intellectual 
life of a nation is the sum of the lives of all intellectual 
people belonging to it, and in this sense your culture is a 
gain to England, whether England counts you amongst 
her eminent sons, or leaves you for ever obscure. Is 



PART X. 

LETTER 

III 



Considera- 
tions 
su°;s;es'ed by 
* 'Mr 
Matthew 
A mold. 



The culture 

of t lie 

individual a 

natiojiai 

gain. 



35° 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 

Patriotism 

and 
self-respect. 



Care for 
the town or 
the family. 



Resistance. 



it not a noble spectacle, a spectacle well worthy of a 
highly civilized country, when a private citizen, with an 
admirable combination of patriotism and self-respect, 
says to himself as he labours, " I know that in a country 
so great as England, where there are so many able men, 
all that I do can count for very little in public estimation, 
yet I will endeavour to store my mind with knowledge 
and make my judgment sure, in order that the national 
mind of England, of which my mind is a minute fraction, 
may be enlightened by so much, be it never so little " ? I 
think the same noble feeling might animate a citizen with 
reference to his native town ; I think a good townsman 
might say to himself, " Our folks are not much given to 
the cultivation of their minds, and they need a few to 
set them an example. I will be one of those few. I 
will work and think, in order that our town may not get 
into a state of perfect intellectual stagnation." But if 
the nation or the city were too vast to call forth any 
noble feeling of this kind, surely the family is little 
enough and near enough. Might not a man say, " I will 
go through a good deal of intellectual drudgery in order 
that my wife and children may unconsciously get the 
benefit of it ; I will learn facts for them that they may be 
accurate, and get ideas for them that they may share with 
me a more elevated mental state ; I will do something 
towards raising the tone of the whole household " ? 

The practical difficulty in all projects of this kind is 
that the household does not care to be intellectually 
elevated, and opposes the resistance of gravitation. The 
household has its natural intellectual level, and finds it 
as inevitably as water that is free. Cultivated men are 
surrounded in their homes by a group of persons, wife, 
children, servants, who, in their intercourse with one 



INTELLECTUAL U YGIENICS. 



351 



another, create the household tone. What is a single 
individual with his books against these combined and 
active influences ? Is he to go and preach the gospel of 
the intellect in the kitchen ? Will he venture to present 
intellectual conclusions in the drawing-room? The 
kitchen has a tone of its own which all our efforts cannot 
elevate, and the drawing-room has its own atmosphere, 
an atmosphere unfavourable to severe and manly thinking. 
You cannot make cooks intellectual, and you must not 
be didactic with ladies. Intellectual men always feel 
this difficulty, and most commonly keep their intellect 
very much to themselves, when they are at home. If 
they have not an outlet elsewhere, either in society or in 
literature, they grow morbid. 

Yet, although it is useless to attempt to elevate any 
human being above his own intellectual level unless he 
gradually climbs himself as a man ascends a mountain, 
there are nevertheless certain charities or condescen- 
dences of the highly cultivated which may be good for 
the lower intelligences that surround them, as the streams 
from the Alpine snows are good for the irrigation of the 
valleys, though the meadows which they water must for 
ever remain eight or ten thousand feet below them. And 
I believe that it would greatly add to the happiness of 
the intellectual portion of mankind if they could more 
systematically exercise these charities. It is quite clear 
that we can never effect by chance conversation that total 
change in the mental state which is gradually brought 
about by the slow processes of education ; we cannot 
give to an intellect that has never been developed, and 
which has fixed itself in the undeveloped state, that 
power and activity which come only after years of labour ; 
Lut we may be able on many occasions to offer the sort 



part x. 

LETTER 
III. 



Kitchens 

a7id 

dra7vi?/°;- 

rooms. 



Charities of 
the hi^luy 
cultivated* 



352 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 

Services 
rendered by 
an iirfellec- 

tual lady. 



Value and 
utility of 

s?ich 
services. 



A suggestion 

of 
M. Tauie's. 



of help which a gentleman offers to an old woman when 
he invites her to get up into the rumble behind his 
carriage. I knew an intellectual lady who lived habitu- 
ally in the country, and 1 may say without fanciful 
exaggeration that the farmers' wives round about her 
were considerably superior to what in all probability they 
would have been without the advantage of her kindly 
and instructive conversation. She possessed the happy 
art of conveying the sort of knowledge which could be 
readily received by her hearers, and in a manner which 
made it agreeable to them, so that they drew ideas from 
her quite naturally, and her mind irrigated their minds, 
which would have remained permanently barren without 
that help and refreshment. It would be foolish to 
exaggerate the benefits of such intellectual charity as 
this, but it is well, on the other hand, not to undervalue 
it. Such an influence can never convey much solid 
instruction, but it may convey some of its results. It 
may produce a more thoughtful and reasonable condition 
of mind, it may preserve the ignorant from some of those 
preposterous theories and beliefs which so easily gain 
currency amongst them. Indirectly, it may have rather 
an important political influence, by disposing people to 
vote for the better sort of candidate. And the influence 
of such intellectual charity on the material well-being of 
the humbler classes, on their health and wealth, may be 
quite as considerable as that of the other and more 
common sort of charity which passes silver from hand 
to hand. 

Shortly after the termination of the great Franco- 
German conflict, M. Taine suggested in the Temps that 
subscribers to the better sort of journals might do a good 
deal for the enlightenment of the humbler classes by 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



353 



merely lending their newspapers in their neighbourhood. 
This was a good suggestion : the best newspapers are an 
important intellectual propaganda; they awaken an inte- 
rest in the most various subjects, and supply not only 
information but a stimulus. The danger to persons 
of higher culture that the newspaper may absorb time 
which would else be devoted to more systematic study, 
does not exist in the classes for whose benefit M. Taine 
made his recommendation. The newspaper is their only 
secular reading, and without it they have no modern 
literature of any kind. In addition to the praiseworthy 
habit of lending good newspapers, an intellectual man 
who lives in the country might adopt the practice of 
conversing with his neighbours about everything in which 
they could be induced to take an interest, giving them 
some notion of what goes on in the classes which are 
intellectually active, some idea of such discoveries and 
projects as an untutored mind may partially understand. 
For example, there is the great tunnel under the Mont 
Cenis, and there is the projected tunnel beneath the 
Channel, and there is the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez. 
A peasant can comprehend the greatness of these re- 
markable conceptions when they are properly explained 
to him, and he will often feel a lively gratitude for informa- 
tion of that kind. We ought to remember what a slow 
and painful operation reading is to the uneducated. 
Merely to read the native tongue is to them a labour so 
irksome that they are apt to lose the sense of a paragraph 
in seeking for that of a sentence or an expression. As 
they would rather speak than have to write, so they 
prefer hearing to reading, and they get much more good 
from it, because they can ask a question when the matter 
has not been made clear to them. 

A A 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 

Lending 

newspapers. 



Talk with 
neighbours. 



Reading 
painful to 
the unedu- 
cated. 



354 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 

Things 

•which 

interest 

intellectual 

iiiferiors. 



Intellectual 
charily. 



One of the best ways of interesting and instructing 
your intellectual inferiors is to give them an account of 
your travels. All people like to hear a traveller tell his 
own tale, and whilst he is telling it he may slip in a good 
deal of information about many things, and much sound 
doctrine. Accounts of foreign countries, even when you 
have not seen them personally, nearly always awaken a 
lively interest, especially if you are able to give your 
hearers detailed descriptions of the life led by foreigners 
who occupy positions corresponding to their own. 
Peasants can be made to take an interest in astronomy 
even, though you cannot tell them anything about the 
peasants in Jupiter and Mars, and there is always, at 
starting, the great difficulty of persuading them to trust 
science about the motion and rotundity of the earth. 

A very direct form of intellectual charity is that of 
gratuitous teaching, both in classes and by public lectures, 
open to all comers. A great deal of light has in this way 
been spread abroad in cities, but in country villages there 
is little encouragement to enterprises of this kind, the 
intelligence of farm labourers being less awakened than 
that of the corresponding urban population. Let us 
remember, however, that one of the very highest and 
last achievements of the cultivated intellect is the art of 
conveying to the uncultivated, the untaught, the unpre- 
pared, the best and noblest knowledge which they are 
capable of assimilating. No one who, like the writer of 
these pages, has lived much in the country, and much 
amongst a densely ignorant peasantry, will be likely in 
any plans of enlightenment to err far on the side of enthusi- 
astic hopefulness. The mind of a farm labourer, or that 
of a small farmer, is almost always sure to be a remark- 
ably stiff soil, in which few intellectual conceptions can 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS, 



355 



take root ; yet these few may make the difference between 
an existence worthy of a man, and one that differs from 
the existence of a brute in little beyond the possession 
of articulate language. We to whom the rich inheritance 
of intellectual humanity is so familiar as to have lost 
much of its freshness, are liable to underrate the value 
of thoughts and discoveries which to us have for years 
seemed commonplace. It is with our intellectual as 
with our material wealth ; we do not realize how precious 
some fragments of it might be to our poorer neighbours. 
The old clothes that we wear no longer may give comfort 
and confidence to a man in naked destitution ; the 
truths which are so familiar to us that we never think 
about them, may raise the utterly ignorant to a sense of 
their human brotherhood. 

Above all, in the exercise of our intellectual chanties, 
let us accustom ourselves to feel satisfied with humble 
results and small successes; and here let me make a 
confession which may be of some possible use to others. 
When a young man, I taught a drawing-class gratuitously, 
beginning with thirty-six pupils, who dwindled gradually 
to eleven. Soon afterwards I gave up the work from 
dissatisfaction, on account of the meagre attendance. 
This was very wrong — the eleven were worth the thirty- 
six ; and so long as one of the eleven remained I ought 
to have contentedly taught him. The success of a 
teacher is not to be measured by the numbers whom he 
immediately influences. It is enough, it has been proved 
to be enough in more than one remarkable instance, 
that a single living soul should be in unison with the 
soul of a master, and receive his thought by sympathy. 
The one disciple teaches in his turn, and the idea is 
propagated. 

A A 2 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 



Value of 
what see ins 

to US CO.'Jl- 

monplace. 



Humble 
results. 



356 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART X. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Joiibert. 



Pas encore 



Too young or 
too old- 



LETTER IV. 

TO THE FRIEND OF A MAN OF HIGH CULTURE WHO PRODUCED 

NOTHING. 

Joubert — "Not yet time," or else "The time is past" — His weak- 
ness for production — Three classes of minds — A more perfect 
intellectual life attainable by the silent student than by authors — - 
He may follow his own genius — Saving of time effected by 
abstinence from writing — The unproductive may be more in- 
fluential than the prolific. 

When I met B. at your house last week* you whispered 
to me in the drawing-room that he was a man of the 
most remarkable attainments, who, to the great regret of 
all his friends, had never employed his abilities to any 
visible purpose. We had not time for a conversation on 
this subject, because B. himself immediately joined us. 
His talk reminded me very much of Joubert — not that I 
ever knew Joubert personally, though I have lived very 
near to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where Joubert lived ; but 
he is one of those characters whom it is possible to know 
without having seen them in the flesh. His friends used 
to urge him to write something, and then he said, " Pas 
encore" u Not yet ; I need a long peace." Tranquillity 
came, and then he said that God had only given force to 
his mind for a limited time, and that the time was past. 
Therefore, as Sainte-Beuve observed, for Joubert there 
was no medium ; either it was not yet time, or else the 
time was past. 

Nothing is more common than for other people to 
say this of us. They often say " He is too young," as 
Napoleon said of Ingres, or else " He is too old," as 
NapoleoD said of Greuze. It is more rare for a man 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



357 



himself to shrink from every enterprise, first under the 
persuasion that he is unprepared, and afterwards because 
the time is no longer opportune. Yet there does exist a 
certain very peculiar class of highly-gifted, diffident, deli- 
cate, unproductive minds, which impress those around 
them with an almost superstitious belief in their possi- 
bilities, yet never do anything to justify that belief. 

But may it not be doubted whether these minds have 
productive power of any kind ? I believe that the full 
extent of Joubert's productive power is displayed in those 
sentences of his which have been preserved, and which 
reveal a genius of the rarest delicacy, but at the same 
time singularly incapable of sustained intellectual effort. 
He said that he could only compose slowly, and with an 
extreme fatigue. He believed, however, that the weak- 
ness lay in the instrument alone, in the composing facul- 
ties, and not in the faculties of thought, for he said that 
behind his weakness there was strength, as behind the 
strength of some others there was weakness. 

In saying this, it is probable that Joubert did not over- 
estimate himself. He had strength of a certain kind, or 
rather he had quality ; he had distinction, which is a sort 
of strength in society and in literature. But he had no 
productive force, and I do not believe that his unproduc- 
tiveness was a productiveness checked by a fastidious 
taste ; I believe that it was real, that he was not 
organized for production. 

Sainte-Beuve said that a modern philosopher was 
accustomed to distinguish three classes of minds — - 

i. Those who are at once powerful and delicate, who 
excel as they propose, execute what they conceive, and 
reach the great and true beautiful — a rare elite amongst 
mortals. 



part x 

LETTER 

IV. 



Joil!i -rfs 

want of 
productive 

power. ■ 



Three classes 
of minds. 



358 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 

IV. 

Three classes 
oj minds. 



Writing 
books. 



2. A class of minds especially characterized by their 
delicacy, who feel that their idea is superior to their 
execution, their intelligence greater than their talent, 
even when the talent is very real ; they are easily dis- 
satisfied with themselves, disdain easily won praises, and 
would rather judge, taste, and abstain from producing, 
than remain below their conception and themselves. Or 
if they write it is by fragments, for themselves only, at 
long intervals and at rare moments. Their fecundity is 
internal, and known to few. 

3. Lastly, there is a third class of minds more powerful 
and less delicate or difficult to please, who go on pro- 
ducing and publishing themselves without being too 
much dissatisfied with their work. 

The majority of our active painters and writers, who 
fill modern exhibitions, and produce the current literature 
of the day, belong to the last class, to which we are all 
greatly indebted for the daily bread of literature and art. 

But Sainte-Beuve believed that Joubert belonged to 
the second class, and I suspect that both Sainte-Beuve 
and many others have credited that class with a potential 
productiveness beyond its real endowments. Minds of 
the Joubert class are admirable and valuable in their 
way, but they are really, and not apparently, sterile. 

And why would we have it otherwise? When we 
lament that a man of culture has " done nothing," as we 
say, we mean that he has not written books. Is it neces- 
sary, is it desirable, that every cultivated person should 
write books? 

On the contrary, it seems that a more perfect intel- 
lectual life may be attained by the silent student than 
by authors. The writer for the public is often so far its 
slave that he is compelled by necessity or induced by 






INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



359 



the desire for success (since it is humiliating to write un- 
saleable books as well as unprofitable) to deviate from 
his true path, to leave the subjects that most interest him 
for other subjects which interest him less, and therefore 
to acquire knowledge rather as a matter of business than 
as a labour of love. But the student who never pub- 
lishes, and does not intend to publish, may follow his 
own genius and take the knowledge which belongs to 
him by natural affinity. Add to this the immense saving 
of time effected by abstinence from writing. Whilst the 
writer is polishing his periods, and giving hours to the 
artistic exigencies of mere form, the reader is adding 
to his knowledge. Thackeray said that writers were not 
great readers, because they had not the time. 

The most studious Frenchman I ever met with used 
to say that he so hated the pen as scarcely to resolve to 
write a letter. He reminded me of Joubert in this ; he 
often said, " J'ai horreur de la plume." Since he had no 
profession his leisure was unlimited, and he employed it 
in educating himself without any other purpose than this, 
the highest purpose of all, to become a cultivated man. 
The very prevalent idea that lives of this kind are failures 
unless they leave some visible achievement as a testi- 
mony and justificatton of their labours, is based upon a 
narrow conception both of duty and of utility. Men of 
this unproductive class are sure to influence their imme- 
diate neighbourhood by the example of their life. Isolated 
as they are too frequently in the provinces, in the midst 
of populations destitute of the higher culture, they often 
establish the notion of it notwithstanding the contemp- 
tuous estimates of the practical people around them. A 
single intellectual life, thus modestly lived through in 
the obscurity of a country-town, may leave a tradition 



PART X. 

LETTER 



A dvantages 

of not 

writing. 



Utility of 

men who do 

not zurite. 



3 6 ° 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 



Joubert. 



Excitement 
■necessary 
to / ' oetical 

production. 



and become an enduring influence. In this, as in all 
things, let us trust the arrangements of Nature. If men 
are at the same time constitutionally studious and con- 
stitutionally unproductive, it must be that production is 
not the only use of study. Joubert was right in keeping 
silence when he felt no impulses to speak, right also in 
saying the little that he did say without a superfluous 
word. His mind is more fully known, and more in- 
fluential, than many which are abundantly productive. 



LETTER V. 

TO A STUDENT WHO FELT HURRIED AND DRIVEN. 

Some intellectual products possible only in excitement — Byron's 
authority on the subject — Can inventive minds work regularly? 
— Sir Walter Scott's opinion — Napoleon on the winning of 
victories — The prosaic business of men of genius — "Waiting 
for inspiration" — Rembrandt's advice to a young painter — 
Culture necessary to inspiration itself — Byron, Keats, Morris — 
Men of genius may be regular as students. 

In my last letter to you on quiet regularity of work, I did 
not give much consideration to another matter which, in 
certain kinds of work, has to be taken into account, for I 
preferred to make that the subject of a separate letter. 
There are certain intellectual products which are only 
possible in hours or minutes of great cerebral excite- 
ment. Byron said that when people were surprised to 
find poets very much like others in the ordinary inter- 
course of life, their surprise was due to ignorance of 
this. If people knew, Byron said, that poetical produc- 
tion came from an excitement which from its intensity 
could only be temporary, they would not expect poets 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



361 



to be very different from other people when not under 
the influence of this excitement. Now, we may take 
the word " poet," in this connection, in the very largest 
sense. All men who have the gift of invention are 
poets. The inventive ideas come to them at unforeseen 
moments, and have to be seized when they come, so 
that the true inventor works sometimes with vertiginous 
rapidity, and afterwards remains for days or weeks with- 
out exercising the inventive faculty at all. The question 
is, can you make an inventive mind work on the prin- 
ciple of measured and regular advance ? Is such counsel 
as that in my former letter applicable to inventors ? 

Scott said, that although he had known many men of 
ordinary abilities who were capable of perfect regularity 
in their habits, he had never known a man of genius who 
was so. The popular impression concerning men of 
genius is very strong in the same sense, but it is well 
not to attach too much importance to popular impres- 
sions concerning men of genius, for the obvious reason 
that such men come very little under popular observa- 
tion. When they work it is usually in the most perfect 
solitude, and even people who live in the same house 
know very little, really, of their intellectual habits. 

The truth seems to be, first, that the moments of high 
excitement, of noblest invention, are rare, and not to be 
commanded by the will ; but, on the other hand, that in 
order to make the gift of invention produce its full effect 
in any department of human effort, vast labours of pre- 
paration are necessary, and these labours may be pursued 
as steadily as you like. Napoleon I. used to say that 
battles were won by the sudden flashing of an idea 
through the brain of the commander at a certain critical 
instant The capacity for generating this sudden electric 



part x. 

LETTER 
V. 



Poets, their 

Manner 0/ 

work. 



Scott en the 

irregularity 

oj 11 u n 0/ 

genius. 



Labours of 

preparation 

necessary. 

Napolecn I. 



l62 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART x. 

LETTER 
V. 



Napoleon's 
Jla. h of in- 
spiration. 



Necessity for 
preparation. 



Waiting fcr 
tnspiratioji. 



spark was military genius. The spark flashed indepen- 
dently of the will ; the General could not win that vivid 
illumination by labour or by prayer ; it came only in the 
brain of genius from the intense anxiety and excitement 
of actual conflict. Napoleon seems always to have 
counted upon it, always to have believed that when the 
critical instant arrived the wild confusion of the battle- 
field would be illuminated for him by that burst of 
sudden flame. But if Napoleon had been ignorant of 
the prosaic business of his profession, to which he at- 
tended more closely than any other commander, what 
would these moments of supreme clearness have availed 
him, or would they ever have come to him at all ? If 
they had come to him, they would have revealed only 
the extent of his own negligence. Instead of showing 
him what to do, they would have made painfully evident 
what ought to have been done. But it is more probable 
that these clear moments would never have occurred to 
a mind unprepared by study. Clear military inspirations 
never occur to shopkeepers and farmers, as bright ideas 
about checkmates occur only to persons who have studied 
chess. The prosaic business, then, of the man of genius 
is to accumulate that preparatory knowledge without 
which his genius can never be available, and he can do 
work of this kind as regularly as he likes. 

The one fatal mistake which is committed habitually 
by people who have the scarcely desirable gift of half- 
genius is " waiting for inspiration." They pass week 
after week in a state of indolence, unprofitable alike to 
the mind and the purse, under pretext of waiting for 
intellectual flashes like those which came to Napoleon 
on his battle-fields. They ought to remember the advice 
given by one of the greatest artists of the seventeenth 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



363 



century to a young painter of his acquaintance. " Prac- 
tise assiduously what you already know, and in course of 
time other things will become clear to you." The inspi- 
rations come only to the disciplined ; the indolent wait 
for them in vain. 

If you have genius, therefore, or believe ycu have, it 
is admitted that you cannot be perpetually in a state of 
intense excitement. If you were in that state without 
ceasing, you would go mad. You cannot be expected to 
write poetry in the plodding ox-pace manner advocated 
for intellectual work generally in my last letter. As for 
that good old comparison between the hare and the tor- 
toise, it may be answered for you, simply, that you are 
not a tortoise, and that what is a most wise procedure for 
tortoises may be impracticable for you. The actual com- 
position of poetry, especially poetry of a fiery kind, like — 

"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece," 

of Byron, is to be done not when the poet will, but when 
he can, or rather, when he must. 

But if you are a wise genius you will feel how neces- 
sary is culture even for work of that kind. Byron would 
not have felt any enthusiasm for the isles of Greece if he 
had not known something of their history. The verses 
are an inspiration, but they could never have occurred to 
a quite uncultivated person, however bright his inspira- 
tions. Even more obviously was the genius of Keats 
dependent upon his culture. He did not read Greek, 
but from translations of Greek literature and from the 
direct study of Greek art he got the sort of material that 
he needed. And in our own day Morris has been evi- 
dently a very diligent student of many literatures. What 



part x. 

LETTER 



Intense 
excitement 

cannot be 
psrpstual. 



C7c!l?tre 

necessary 

for poetry. 



3 6 4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



part x. I insist upon is, that we could not have had the real 
Keats, the real Morris, unless they had prepared them- 
selves by culture. We see immediately that the work 
they have done is their work, specially, that they were 
specially adapted for it — inspired for it, if you will. But 
how evident it is that the inspiration could never have 
produced the work, or anything like it, without labour in 
the accumulation of material ! 

Now, although men of genius cannot be regularly pro- 
gressive in actual production, cannot write so many 
verses a day, regularly, as you may spin yarn, they can 
be very regular as students, and some of the best of them 
have been quite remarkable for- unflinching steadiness of 
application in that way. The great principle recom- 
mended by Mr. Galton, of not looking forward eagerly 
to the end of your journey, but interesting yourself chiefly 
in the progress of it, is as applicable to the studies of 
men of genius as to those of more ordinary persons. 



Men of 

genius can 

be regular 

students. 



LETTER 
VI. 



LETTER VI. 

TO AN ARDENT FRIEND WHO TOOK NO REST. 

On some verses of Goethe — Man not constituted like a planet — 
Matthew Arnold's poem, "Self-dependence" — Poetry and prose 
— The wind more imi table than the stars — The stone in Glen 
Croe — Rest and be thankful. 

"Rambling over the wild moors, with thoughts often- 
times as wild and dreary as those moors, the young 
Carlyle, who had been cheered through his struggling 
sadness, and strengthened for the part he was to play 
in life, by the beauty and the wisdom which Goethe 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



365 



had revealed to him, suddenly conceived the idea that 
it would be a pleasant and a fitting thing if some of 
the few admirers in England forwarded to Weimar a 
trifling token of their admiration. On reaching home 
Mr. Carlyle at once sketched the design of a seal to be 
engraved, the serpent of eternity encircling a star, with 
the words ohne Hasty ohne Rast (unhasting, unresting), 
in allusion to the well-known verses — 

' Wie das Gestirn, 
Ohne Hast 
Aber ohne Rast 
Drehe sich jeder 
Um die eigne Last.' 

(Like a star, unhasting, unresting, be each one fulfilling 
his God-given ' hest.')" 1 

This is said so beautifully, and seems so wise, that it 
may easily settle down into the mind as a maxim and 
rule of life. Had we been told in plain prose to take no 
rest, without the beautiful simile of the star, and without 
the wise restriction about haste, our common sense would 
have rebelled at once ; but as both beauty and wisdom 
exist together in the' gem-like stanza, our judgment re- 
mains silent in charmed acquiescence. 

Let us ask ourselves, however, about this stellar ex- 
ample, whether man is naturally so constituted as to be 
able to imitate it. A planet moves without haste, be- 
cause it is incapable of excitement ; and without rest, 
because it is incapable of fatigue. A planet makes no 
effort, and encounters no friction or resistance of any 
kind. Man is so constituted as to feel frequently the 
stimulus of excitement, which immediately translates 
1 Lewes's "Life of Goethe," Book vii. chap. 8. 



PART X. 

^LETTER 
VI. 



Verses of 
Goethe. 



Stars and 
men. 



3 66 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X 

LETTER 
VI. 

Men and 
stars. 



Goethe's 
meaning. 



Mattlieio 

A mold's 

poem " Self- 

dependence." 



itself either into actual acceleration or into the desire 
for acceleration — a desire which cannot be restrained 
without an effort ; and whatever man undertakes to do 
he encounters friction and resistance, which, for him, 
always sooner or later inevitably induce fatigue. Man 
is neither constituted like a star nor situated like a star, 
and therefore it is not possible for him to exist as 
stars exist. 

You will object to this criticism that it handles a deli- 
cate little poem very roughly, and you may tell me that 
I am unfit to receive the wisdom of the poets, which is 
always uttered with a touch of Oriental exaggeration. 
Certainly Goethe could never mean that a man should 
kill himself by labours literally incessant. Goethe's own 
life is the best elucidation of his true meaning. The 
example of the star was held up to us to be followed only 
within the limits of our human nature, as a Christian 
points to the example of Christ. In the same spirit 
Matthew Arnold wrote his noble poem " Self-depend- 
ence," in which he tells us to live like the stars and 
the sea: — 

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, 
On my heart your mighty charm renew ; 
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, 
Feel my soul becoming vast like you." 

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, 

Over the lit sea's unquiet way, 
In the rustling night-air came the answer : 

" Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they. 

" Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 

Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things without them 

Yield them love, amusement, sympathy." 






INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



367 



The true intention of poetical teachings like these is 
in the influence they have over the feelings. If a star 
makes me steadier in my labour, less of a victim to 
vain agitation, in consequence of Goethe's verses ; if the 
stars and the sea together renew more fully their mighty 
charm upon my heart because those stanzas of Arnold 
have fixed themselves in my memory, the poets have 
done their work. But the more positive prosatcur has 
his work to do also, and you, as it seems to me, need 
this positive help of prose. 

You are living a great deal too much like a star, and 
not enough like a human being. You do not hasten 
often, but you nmcr rest, except when Nature mercifully 
prostrates you in irresistible sleep. Like the stars and 
the sea in Arnold's poem, you do not ask surrounding 
things to yield you love, amusement, sympathy. The 
stars and the sea can do without these refreshments 
of the brain and heart, but you cannot. Rest is neces- 
sary to recruit your intellectual forces ; sympathy is 
necessary to prevent your whole nature from stiffening 
like a rotifer without moisture; love is necessary to make 
life beautiful for you, as the plumage of certain birds 
becomes splendid when they pair; and without amuse- 
ment you will lose the gaiety which wise men try to keep 
as the best legacy of youth. 

Let your rest be perfect in its season, like the rest of 
waters that are still. If you will have a model for your 
living, take neither the stars, for they fly without ceasing, 
nor the ocean that ebbs and flows, nor the river that 
cannot stay, but rather let your life be like that of the 
summer air, which has times of noble energy and times 
of perfect peace. It fills the sails of ships upon the sea, 
and the miller thanks it on the breezy uplands ; it works 



part x. 

LETTER 

VI. 



Necessity 
for I'esty 
sym/> \lliy 
and love. 



36? 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LJiTTER 
VI. 



The art of 
resting. 



" Rest, and 
be thankful" 



generously for the health and wealth of all men, yet it 
claims its hours of rest. " I have pushed the fleet, I 
have turned the mill, I have refreshed the city, and now, 
though the captain may walk impatiently on the quarter- 
deck, and the miller swear, and the city stink, I will stir 
no more until it pleases me." 

You have learned many things, my friend, but one 
thing you have not learned — the art of resting. That 
stone in Glen Croe ought to have impressed its lesson 
on the mind of many a traveller, long before Earl Russell 
gave it a newspaper celebrity. Have we not rested there 
together, you and I, a little in advance of the coach, 
which the weary horses were still slowly dragging up the 
tedious hill? And as we sat on the turf, and looked 
down the misty glen, did we not read the lesson there 
engraven ? How good and human the idea was, the 
idea of setting up that graven stone in the wilderness ; 
how full of sympathy is that inscription for all the weak- 
ness and weariness of humanity ! Once, in the ardour 
of youth, there shone before me a golden star in heaven, 
and on the deep azure around it " Ohne Hast, ohne 
Rast" in letters of steady flame; but now I see more 
frequently a plain little stone set up in the earth, with 
the inscription, " Rest, and be thankful ! " 

Is not the stone just a little like a gravestone, my 
friend ? Perhaps it is. But if we take rest when we 
require it during life, we shall not need the grave's rest 
quite so soon. 






INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



369 



LETTER VII. 

TO AN ARDENT FRIEND WHO TOOK NO REST. 

The regret for lost time often a needless one — Tillier's doctrine about 
Jldnerie — How much is gained in idle hours — Sainte-Beuve's con- 
viction that whatever he did he studied the infinite book of the 
world and of life— Harness— Free play of the mind necessary— 
The freedom of a grain of desert-sand— The freedom of the 
wild bee. 

If we asked any intellectual workman what he would 
do if his life were to be lived over again, I believe the 
answer, whatever its form, would amount ultimately to 
this : " I would economize my time better." Very likely 
if the opportunity were granted him he would do nothing 
of the sort ; very likely he would waste his time in ways 
more authorized by custom, yet waste it just as extrava- 
gantly as he had done after his own original fashion ; but 
it always seems to us as if we could use the time better 
if we had it over again. 

It seems to me, in looking back over the last thirty 
years, that the only time really wasted has been that 
spent in laborious obedience to some external authority. 
It may be a dangerous doctrine which Claude Tillier 
expressed in an immortal sentence, but dangerous or 
not, it is full of intellectual truth : " Le temps le mieux 
employe est celui que Ton perd." 1 If what we are 
accustomed to consider lost time could be removed, as 
to its effects at least, from the sum of our existence, it 
is certain that we should suffer from a great intellectual 
impoverishment. All the best knowledge of mankind, 

x The best employed time is that which one loses. 
B B 



PART X 

LETTER 
VII. 



Desire to 

economize 

time. 



Time really 
wasted. 



Tillier's 
doctrine. 



!70 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
V.I. 



Education 
out of 
school. 



Value of 

idleness. 



The conclu- 
sion Sainte- 

Beuve 
arrived at. 



to begin with, is acquired in hours which hard-working 
people consider lost hours — in hours, that is, of pleasure 
and recreation. Deduct all that we have learnt about 
men in times of recreation, in clubs and smoking-rooms, 
on the hunting-field, on the cricket-ground, on the deck 
of the yacht, on the box of the drag or the dog-cart, 
would the residue be worth very much ? would it not be 
a mere heap of dry bones without any warm flesh to 
cover them ? Even the education of most of us, such as 
it is, has been in a great measure acquired out of school, 
as it were ; I mean outside of the acknowledged duties of 
our more serious existence. Few Englishmen past forty 
have studied English literature either as a college exer- 
cise or a professional preparation ; they have read it 
privately, as an amusement. Few Englishmen past forty 
have studied modern languages, or science, or the fine 
arts, from any obedience to duty, but merely from taste 
and inclination. And even if we studied these things 
formally, as young men often do at the present day, it 
is not from the formal study that we should get the 
perfume of the language or the art, but from idle hours 
in foreign lands and galleries. It is superfluous to recom- 
mend idleness to the unintellectual, but the intellectual 
too often undervalue it. The laborious intellect con- 
tracts a habit of strenuousness which is sometimes a 
hindrance to its best activity. 

"I have arrived," said Sainte-Beuve, "perhaps byway 
of secretly excusing my own idleness, perhaps by a deeper 
feeling of the principle that all comes to the same, at the 
conclusion that whatever I do or do not, working in the 
study at continuous labour, scattering myself in articles, 
spreading myself about in society, giving my time away 
to troublesome callers, to poor people, to rendezvous, in 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



37* 



the street, no matter to whom and to what, I cease not 
to do one and the same thing, to read one and the same 
book, the infinite book of the world and of life, that no 
one ever finishes, in which the wisest read farthest; I 
read it then at all the pages which present themselves, 
in broken fragments, backwards, what matters it? I 
never cease going on. The greater the medley, the 
more frequent the interruption, the more I get on with 
this book in which one is never beyond the middle ; but 
the profit is to have had it open before one at all sorts 
of different pages." 

A distinguished author wrote to another author, less 
distinguished : " You have gone through a good deal of 
really vigorous study, but have not been in harness yet." 
By harness he meant discipline settled beforehand like 
military drill. Now, the advantages of drill are evident 
and very generally recognized, but the advantages of 
intellectual JZ a nerie are not so generally recognized. For 
the work of the intellect to be clear and healthy, a great 
deal of free play of the mind is absolutely necessary. 
Harness is good for an hour or two at a time, but the 
finest intellects have never lived in harness. In reading 
any book that has much vitality you are sure to meet 
with many allusions and illustrations which the author 
hit upon, not when he was in harness, but out at grass. 
Harness trains us to the systematic performance of our 
work, and increases our practical strength by regulated 
exercise, but it does not supply everything that is neces- 
sary to the perfect development of the mind. The truth 
is, that we need both the discipline of harness and the 
abundant nourishment of the free pasture. Yet may not 
our freedom be the profitless, choiceless, freedom of a 
grain of desert-sand, carried hither and thither by the 

B B 2 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VII. 

Saitite- 

Beiwe's 

opinion on 

occupation. 



Harness. 



Flanerie. 



Free 
pasture- 



372 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VII. 



Freedom 

of the 
wild bee. 



LETTER 
VIII. 



A bstinence 
from news- 
papers. 



wind, gaining nothing and improving nothing, so that it 
does not signify where it was carried yesterday or where 
it may fall to-morrow, but rather the liberty of the wild 
bee, whose coming and going are ordered by no master, 
nor fixed by any premeditated regulation, yet which 
misses no opportunity of increase, and comes home 
laden in the twilight. "Who knows where he has wan- 
dered ; who can tell over what banks and streams the hum 
of his wings has sounded ? Is anything in nature freer 
than he is ; can anything account better for a rational 
use of freedom ? Would he do his work better if tiny 
harness were ingeniously contrived for him? Where 
then would be the golden honey, and where the waxen 
cells ? 

LETTER VIII. 

TO A FRIEND (HIGHLY CULTIVATED) WHO CONGRATULATED 
HIMSELF ON HAVING ENTIRELY ABANDONED THE HABIT OF 
READING NEWSPAPERS. 

Advantages in economy of time — Much of "what we read in news- 
papers is useless to our culture — The too great importance which 
they attach to novelty — Distortion by party spirit — An instance 
of false presentation — Gains to serenity by abstinence from news- 
papers — Newspapers keep up our daily interest in each other — 
The French peasantry — The newspaper-reading Americans — An 
instance of total abstinence from newspapers — Auguste Comte 
— A suggestion of Emerson's — The work of newspaper corre- 
spondents — War correspondents — Mr. Stanley — M. Erdan, of 
the Temps. 

Your abstinence from newspaper reading is not a new 
experiment in itself, though it is new in reference to your 
particular case, and I await its effects with interest. I 
shall be curious to observe the consequences, to an intel- 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



373 



lect constituted as yours is, of that total cutting off from 
the public interests of your own century which an absti- 
nence from newspapers implies. It is clear that, whatever 
the loss may be, you have a definite gain to set against 
it. The time which you have hitherto given to news- 
papers, and which may be roughly estimated at about 
five hundred hours a year, is henceforth a valuable time- 
income to be applied to whatever purposes your best 
wisdom may select. When an intellectual person has 
contrived by the force of one simple resolution to effect 
so fine an economy as this, it is natural that he should 
congratulate himself. Your feelings must be like those 
of an able finance minister who has found means of 
closing a great leak in the treasury — if any economy 
possible in the finances of a State could ever relatively 
equal that splendid stroke of time-thrift which your force 
of will has enabled you to effect. In those five hundred 
hours, which are now your own, you may acquire a 
science or obtain a more perfect command over one of 
the languages which you have studied. Some depart- 
ment of your intellectual labours which has hitherto been 
unsatisfactory to you, because it was too imperfectly 
cultivated, may henceforth be as orderly and as fruitful 
as a well-kept garden. You may become thoroughly 
conversant with the works of more than one great author 
whom you have neglected, not from lack of interest, but 
from want of time. You may open some old chamber 
of the memory that has been dark and disused for many 
a year; you may clear the cobwebs away, and let the 
fresh light in, and make it habitable once again. 

Against these gains, of which some to a man of your 
industry are certain, and may be counted upon, what 
must be our estimate of the amount of sacrifice or loss? 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Time given 
to news- 
papers. 



if dnioiedtJ 
culture 



374 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Unimpor- 
tant matter 
in nezvs- 
papers. 



Greatest evil 
of news- 
papers 



Emphasis 
given to 

novelty. 



It is clear to both of us that much of what we read in the 
newspapers is useless to our culture. A large proportion 
of newspaper-writing is occupied with speculations on 
what is likely to happen in the course of a few months ; 
therefore, by waiting until the time is past, we know the 
event without having wasted time in speculations which 
could not affect it. Another rather considerable fraction 
of newspaper matter consists of small events which have 
interest for the day, owing to their novelty, but which 
will not have the slightest permanent importance. The 
whole press of a newspaper-reading country, like England 
or America, may be actively engaged during the space of 
a week or a fortnight in discussing some incident which 
everybody will have forgotten in six months ; and besides 
these sensational incidents, there are hundreds of less 
notorious ones, often fictitious, inserted simply for the 
temporary amusement of the reader. The greatest evil 
of newspapers, in their effect on the intellectual life, is 
the enormous importance which they are obliged to attach 
to mere novelty. From the intellectual point of view, it 
is of no consequence whether a thought occurred twenty- 
two centuries ago to Aristotle or yesterday evening to Mr. 
Charles Darwin, and it is one of the distinctive marks oi 
the truly intellectual to be able to take a hearty interest 
in all truth, independently of the date of its discovery. 
The emphasis given by newspapers to novelty exhibits 
things in wrong relations, as the lantern shows you what 
is nearest at the cost of making the general landscape 
appear darker by the contrast. Besides this exhibition 
of things in wrong relations, there is a positive distortion 
arising from the unscrupulousness of party, a distortion 
which extends far beyond the limits of the empire. An 
essay might be written on the distortion of English 






INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



375 



affairs in the French press, or of French affairs in the 
English press, by writers who are as strongly partisan in 
another country as in their own. "It is such a grand 
thing," wrote an English Paris correspondent in 1870, 
"for Adolphus Thiers, son of a poor labourer of Aix, 
and in early life a simple journalist, to be at the head of 
the Government of France." This is a fair specimen of 
the kind of false presentation which is so common in 
party journalism. The newspaper from which I have 
quoted it was strongly opposed to Thiers, being in fact 
one of the principal organs of the English Bonapartists. 
It is not true that Thiers was the son of a poor labourer 
of Aix. His father was a workman of Marseilles, his 
mother belonged to a family in which neither wealth nor 
culture had been rare, and his mother's relatives had him 
educated at the Lycee. The art of the journalist in 
bringing together the two extremes of a career remark- 
able for its steady ascent had for its object to produce the 
idea of incongruity, of sudden and unsuitable elevation. 
Not only M. Thiers, however, but every human being 
starts from a very small beginning, since every man 
begins life as a baby. It is a great rise for one baby to 
the Presidency of the French Republic; it was also a 
great rise for other babies who have attained the premier- 
ship of England. The question is, not what Thiers may 
have been seventy years ago, but what he was immediately 
before his acceptance of the highest office of the State. 
He was the most trusted and the most experienced 
citizen, so that the last step in his career was as natural 
as the elevation of Reynolds to the presidency of the 
Academy. 

It is difficult for anyone who cares for justice to read 
party journals without frequent irritation, and it does not 



part x. 

LETTER 
VIII. 

Specimen 
of false 
presentation 
in party 
writing. 



Career of 
M. Thiers. 



376 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VIII. 

Unfairness 

of parly 

spirit. 



What 

tteivsfafers 

are. 



signify which side the newspaper takes. Men are so 
unfair in controversy that we best preserve the serenity of 
the intellect by studiously avoiding all literature that has 
a controversial tone. By your new rule of abstinence 
from newspapers you will no doubt gain almost as much 
in serenity as in time. To the ordinary newspaper 
reader there is little loss of serenity, because he reads 
only the newspaper that he agrees with, and however 
unfair it is, he is pleased by its unfairness. But the 
highest and best culture makes us disapprove of unfair- 
ness on our own side of the question also. We are 
pained by it ; we feel humiliated by it ; we lament its' 
persistence and its perversity. 

I have said nearly all that has to be said in favour of 
your rule of abstinence. I have granted that the news- 
papers cost us much time, which, if employed for great 
intellectual purposes, would carry us very far ; that they 
give disproportionate views of things by the emphasis 
they give to novelty, and false views by the unfairness 
which belongs to party. I might have added that news- 
paper writers give such a preponderance to politics — not 
political philosophy, but to the everyday work of poli- 
ticians — that intellectual culture is thrown into the back- 
ground, and the election of a single member of Parliament 
is made to seem of greater national importance than the 
birth of a powerful idea. And yet, notwithstanding all 
these considerations, which are serious indeed for the 
intellectual, I believe that your resolution is unwise, and 
that you will find it to be untenable. One momentous 
reason more than counterbalances all these considerations 
put together. Newspapers are to the whole civilized 
world what the daily house-talk is to the members of a 
household ; they keep up our daily interest in each 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



377 



other, they save us from the evils of isolation. To live 
as a member of the great white race of men, the race 
that has filled Europe and America, and colonized or 
conquered whatever other territories it has been pleased 
to occupy, to share from day to day its cares, its thoughts, 
its aspirations, it is necessary that every man should 
read his daily newspaper. Why are the French peasants 
so bewildered and at sea, so out of place in the modern 
world? It is because they never read a newspaper. 
And why are the inhabitants of the United States, though 
scattered over a territory fourteen times the area of 
France, so much more capable of concerted political 
action, so much more alive and modern, so much more 
interested in new discoveries of all kinds and capable of 
selecting and utilizing the best of them ? It is because 
the newspaper penetrates everywhere ; and even the 
lonely dweller on the prairie or in the forest is not 
intellectually isolated from the great currents of public 
life which flow through the telegraph and the press. 

The experiment of doing without newspapers has been 
tried by a whole class, the French peasantry, with the 
consequences that we know, and it has also from time to 
time been tried by single individuals belonging to more 
enlightened sections of society. Let us take one instance, 
and let us note what appear to have been the effects of 
this abstinence. Auguste Comte abstained from news- 
papers as a teetotaller abstains from spirituous liquors. 
Now, Auguste Comte. possessed a gift of nature which, 
though common in minor degrees, is in the degree in 
which he possessed it rarer than enormous diamonds. 
That gift was the power of dealing with abstract intellec- 
tual conceptions, and living amidst them always, as the 
practical mind lives in and deals with material things. , 



part x. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Non-readers 

of 
newspapers. 



Readers of 

newspapers. 



A itgnste 

Comte an 

abstainer 

from 

newspapers- 



378 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VIII. 

Cc7)ite's 

instinct of 

preservation 



Peril of 

Comte's 

Titles. 



Ccmte's 
religion. 



And it happened in Comte's case, as it usually does 
happen in cases of very peculiar endowment, that the 
gift was accompanied by the instincts necessary to its 
perfect development and to its preservation. Comte 
instinctively avoided the conversation of ordinary people, 
because he felt it to be injurious to the perfect exercise 
of his faculty, and for the same reason he would not read 
newspapers. In imposing upon himself these privations 
he acted like a very eminent living etcher, who, having 
the gift of an extraordinary delicacy of hand, preserves 
it by abstinence from everything that may affect the 
steadiness of the nerves. There is a certain difference, 
however, between the two cases which I am anxious to 
accentuate. The etcher runs no risk of any kind by his 
rule of abstinence. He refrains from several common 
indulgences, but he denies himself nothing that is neces- 
sary to health. I may even go farther, and say that the 
rules which he observes for the sake of perfection in his 
art, might be observed with advantage by many who are 
not artists, for the sake of their own tranquillity, without 
the loss of anything but pleasure. The rules which 
Comte made for himself involved, on the other hand, 
a great peril. In detaching himself so completely from 
the interests and ways of thinking of ordinary men, he 
elaborated, indeed, the conceptions of the positive philo- 
sophy, but arrived afterwards at a peculiar kind of in- 
tellectual decadence from which it is possible — probable 
even — that the rough common sense of the newspapers 
might have preserved him. They would have saved him, 
I seriously believe, from that mysticism which led to the 
invention of a religion far surpassing in unreasonableness 
the least rational of the creeds of tradition. It is scarcely 
imaginable, except on the supposition of actual insanity, 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



37? 



that any regular reader of the Times, the Temps, the 
Daily Navs, and the Saturday Review, should believe the 
human race to be capable of receiving as the religion of 
its maturity the Comtist Trinity and the Comtist Virgin 
Mother. A Trinity consisting of the Great Being (or 
humanity), the Great Fetish (or the earth), and the Great 
Midst (or space) ; a hope for the human race (how un- 
physiological !) that women might ultimately arrive at 
maternity independently of virile help, — these are con- 
ceptions so remote, not only from the habits of modern 
thought, but (what is more important) from its tendencies, 
that they could not occur to a mind in regular communi- 
cation with its contemporaries. 

" If you should transfer the amount of your reading 
day by day from the newspaper to the standard authors ? " 
To this suggestion of Emerson's it may be answered that 
the loss would be greater than the gain. The writers of 
Queen Anne's time could educate an Englishman of 
Queen Anne's time, but they can only partially educate 
an Englishman of Queen Victoria's time. The mind is 
like a merchant's ledger, it requires to be continually 
posted up to the latest date. Even the last telegram 
may have upset some venerable theory that has been 
received as infallible for ages. 

In times when great historical events are passing be- 
fore our eyes, the journalist is to future historians what 
the African traveller is to the map-makers. His work is 
neither complete nor orderly, but it is the fresh record 
of an eye-witness, and enables us to become ourselves 
spectators of the mighty drama of the world. Never 
was this service so well rendered as it is now, by corre- 
spondents who achieve heroic feats of bodily and mental 
prowess, exposing themselves to the greatest dangers, 



part x. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



A 

of 
Emerson's. 



Office of ths 
journalist. 



3 8o 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
VIII. 



Mr. Stanley. 



M. Erdan, 
the Roman 
correspon- 
dent of ike 
TemJ>s- 



and writing much and well in circumstances the most 
unfavourable to literary composition. How vividly the 
English war correspondents brought before us the reality 
of the great conflict between Germany and France ! 
What a romantic achievement, worthy to be sung in 
heroic verse, was the finding of Livingstone by Stanley ! 
Not less interesting have been the admirable series of 
letters by M. Erdan in the Te??ips i in which, with the 
firmness of a master-hand, he has painted from the 
life, week after week, year after year, the decline and fall 
of the temporal power of the Papacy. I cannot think 
that any page of Roman history is better worth reading 
than his letters, more interesting, instructive, lively, or 
authentic. Yet with your contempt for newspapers you 
would lose all this profitable entertainment, and seek 
instead of it the accounts of former epochs not half so 
interesting as this fall of the temporal power, accounts 
written in most cases by men in libraries who had not 
seen the sovereigns they wrote about, nor talked with 
the people whose condition they attempted to describe. 
You have a respect for these accounts because they are 
printed in books, and bound in leather, and entitled 
"history," whilst you despise the direct observation of 
a man like Erdan, because he is only a journalist, and 
his letters are published in a newspaper. Is there not 
some touch of prejudice in this, some mistake, some 
narrowness of intellectual aristocracy? 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



3Si 



LETTER IX. 

TO AN AUTHOR WHO APPRECIATED CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. 

Miss Mitford on the selfishness of authors — A suggestion of 
Emerson's — A laconic rule of his — Traces of jealousy — And 
of a more subtle feeling — A contradiction — Necessary to resist 
the invasion of the present — A certain equilibrium — The oppo- 
site of a pedant — The best classics not pedants, but artists. 

Reading the other day a letter by Miss Mitford, I was 
reminded of you as the eye is reminded of green when it 
sees scarlet. You, whose interest in literature has ever 
kept pace with the time, to whom no new thing is unwel- 
come if only it is good, are safe from her accusations ; 
but how many authors have deserved them ! Miss 
Mitford is speaking of a certain writer who is at the 
same time a clergyman, and whom it is not difficult to 
recognize. 

" I never," she says, " saw him interested in the 
slightest degree by the work of any other author, except, 
indeed, one of his own followers or of his own clique, 
and then only as admiring or helping him. He has 
great kindness and great sympathy with working people, 
or with a dying friend, but I profess to you I am amazed 
at the utter selfishness of authors. I do not know one 
single poet who cares for any man's poetry but his own. 
In general they read no books except such as may be 
necessary to their own writings — that is, to the work 
they happen to be about, and even then I suspect that 
they only read the bits that they may immediately want. 
You know the absolute ignorance in which Wordsworth 
lived of all modern works ; and if, out of compliment to 



PART X 

LETTER 



Miss Mit- 
ford on the 
selfishness 
of authors. 



382 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Emerson 

on the 

secondary 

writers. 



Famed 
books- 



a visitor, he thought it needful to seem to read or listen 
to two or three stanzas, he gave unhesitating praise to 
the writer himself, but took especial care not to repeat 
the praise where it might have done him good — utterly 
fair and false." 

There are touches of this spirit of indifference to 
contemporary literature in several writers and scholars 
whom we know. There are distinct traces of it even 
in published writings, though it is much more evident 
in private life and habit. Emerson seriously suggests that 
" the human mind would perhaps be a gainer if all the 
secondary writers were lost — say, in England, all but 
Shakespeare, Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder 
study so drawn to those wonderful minds." In the same 
spirit we have Emerson's laconic rule, " Never read any 
but famed books," which suggests the remark that if men 
had obeyed this rule from the beginning, no book could 
ever have acquired reputation, and nobody would ever 
have read anything. The idea of limiting English litera- 
ture to a holy trinity of Shakespeare, Milton, and Bacon, 
and voluntarily losing all other authors, seems to me the 
most intense expression of the spirit of aristocracy in 
reading. It is as if a man were to decide in his own 
mind that society would be the better if all persons 
except the three Emperors were excluded from it. There 
is a want of reliance upon one's own judgment, and an 
excess of faith in the estimates of others, when we resolve 
to read only those books which come to us in the splen- 
dour of a recognized intellectual royalty. We read either 
to gain information, to have good thinking suggested to 
us, or to have our imagination stimulated. In the way 
of knowledge the best authors are always the most recent, 
so that Bacon could not suffice. In the way of thinking, 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



383 



our methods have gained in precision since Milton's 
time, and we are helped by a larger experience than 
his. The one thing which Shakespeare and Milton can 
do for us quite perfectly still, is to fill our imagination 
richly, and give it a fine stimulus. But modern writers 
can render us the same service. 

Is there not a little jealousy of contemporaries in the 
persistence with which some authors avoid them, and 
even engage others to avoid them? May not there 
be a shade of another feeling than jealousy, a feeling 
more subtle in operation, the undefined apprehension 
that we may find, even amongst our more obscure con- 
temporaries, merit equal to our own ? So long as we 
restrict our reading to old books of great fame we are 
safe from this apprehension, for if we find admirable 
qualities, we know beforehand that the world Jias hand- 
somely acknowledged them, and we indulge in the hope 
that our own admirable qualities will be recognized by 
posterity with equal liberality. But it creates an un- 
pleasant feeling of uneasiness to see quantities of obscure 
contemporary work, done in a plain way to earn a livin^ 
by men of third or fourth-rate reputation, or of no repu- 
tation at all, which in many respects would fairly sustain 
a comparison with our own. It is clear that an author 
ought to be the last person to advise the public not to 
read contemporary literature, since he is himself a maker 
of contemporary literature; and there is a direct contra- 
diction between the invitation to read his book, which he 
circulates by the act of publishing, and the advice which 
the book contains. Emerson is more safe from this 
obvious rejoinder when he suggests to us to transfer our 
reading day by day from the newspaper to the standard 
authors. But are these suggestions anything more than 



PART X. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Jealousy of 
contempo- 
raries* 



A not her 
feelings 



Obscure con- 
temporary 
work. 



3^4 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
IX. 



Neglect of 
standard 
authors- 



The 

invasion of 
novelty. 



the reaction of an intellectual man against the too preva- 
lent customs of the world ? The reading practised by 
most people, by all who do not set before themselves 
intellectual culture as one of the definite aims of life, is 
remarkable for the regularity with which it neglects all 
the great authors of the past. The books provided by 
the circulating library, the reviews and magazines, the 
daily newspapers, are read whilst they are novelties, but 
the standard authors are left on their shelves unopened. 
We require a firm resolution to resist this invasion of 
what is new, because it flows like an unceasing river, and 
unless we protect our time against it by some solid em- 
bankment of unshakable rule and resolution, every nook 
and cranny of it will be filled and flooded. An English- 
man whose life was devoted to culture, but who lived in 
an out-of-the-way place on the Continent, told me that he 
considered it a decided advantage to his mind to live 
quite outside of the English library system, because if he 
wanted to read a new book he had to buy it and pay 
heavily for carriage besides, which made him very care- 
ful in his choice. For the same reason he rejoiced that 
the nearest English news-room was two hundred miles 
from his residence. 

But, on the other hand, what would be the condition 
of a man's mind who never read anything but the classic 
authors ? He would live in an intellectual monastery, 
and would not even understand the classic authors them- 
selves, for we understand the past only by referring it to 
what we know in the present. 

It is best to preserve our minds in a state of equili- 
brium, and not to allow our repugnance to what we see 
as an evil to drive us into an evil of an opposite kind. 
We are too often like those little toy-fish with a bit of 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



3*5 



steel in their mouths, which children attract with a 
magnet. If you present the positive pole of the magnet, 
the fish rushes at it at once, but if you offer the negative 
end it retreats continually. Everything relatively to our 
character has this positive or negative end, and we 
either rush to things or rush away from them. Some 
persons are actually driven away from the most enter- 
taining writers because they happen to be what are 
called classics, because pedants boast of having read 
them I know a man who is exactly the opposite of a 
pedant, who has a horror of the charlatanism which 
claims social and intellectual position as the reward for 
having laboriously waded through those authors who are 
conventionally termed " classical," and this opposition to 
pedantry has given him an aversion to the classics them- 
selves, which he never opens. The shallow pretence to 
admiration of famous writers which is current in the 
world is so distasteful to the love of honesty and reality 
which is the basis of his character, that by an unhappy 
association of ideas he has acquired a repugnance to the 
writers themselves. But such men as Horace, Terence, 
Shakespeare, Moliere, though they have had the misfor- 
tune to be praised and commentated upon by pedants, 
were in their lives the precise opposite of pedants ; 
they were artists whose study was human nature, and 
who lived without pretension in the common world 
of men. The pedants have a habit of considering 
these genial old artists as in some mysterious way their 
own private property, for do not the pedants live by 
expounding them ? And some of us are frightened 
away from the fairest realms of poetry by the fences of 
these grim guardians. 



PART X. 

LETTER 



The classics 
wade re- 
pulsive by 
the praise oj 
pedants- 



Classical 

authors not 

themselves 

pedants but 

artists. 



c c 



3$6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART X. 

LETTER 
X. 



Julian 

Fa7ie , s late 

hours. 



LETTER X. 

TO AN AUTHOR WHO KEPT VERY IRREGULAR HOURS. 

Julian Fane — His late hours ; — Regularity produced by habit — The 
time of the principal effort — That the chief work should be done 
in the best hours — Physicians prefer early to late work — The 
practice of Goethe and some modern authors — The morning 
worker ought to live in a tranquil neighbourhood — Night-work — 
The medical objection to it — The student's objection to day-work 
— Time to be kept in masses by adults, but divided into small 
portions by children — Rapid tuning of the mind — Cuvier eminent 
for this faculty — The Duke of Wellington — The faculty more 
available with some occupations than others — The slavery of a 
minute obedience to the clock — Broad rules the best — Books 
of agenda, good in business, but not in the higher intellectual 
pursuits. 

What you told me of your habits in the employment 
of your hours reminded me of Julian Fane. Mr. Lytton 
tells us that " after a long day of professional business, 
followed by a late evening of social amusement, he would 
return in the small hours of the night to his books, and 
sit, unwearied, till sunrise in the study of them. Nor did 
he then seem to suffer from this habit of late hours. His 
nightly vigils occasioned no appearance of fatigue the 
next day. . . . He rarely rose before noon, and generally 
rose much later." 

But however irregular a man's distribution of his time 
may be in the sense of wanting the government of fixed 
rules, there always comes in time a certain regularity 
by the mere operation of habit. People who get up 
very late hardly ever do so in obedience to a rule ; many 
get up early by rule, and many more are told that they 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



387 



ought to get up early, and believe it, and aspire to that 
virtue, but fail to carry it into practice. The late-risers 
are rebels and sinners — in this respect — to a man, and 
so persistently have the wise, from Solomon downwards, 
harped upon the moral loveliness of early rising and the 
degradation which follows the opposite practice, that one 
can hardly get up after eight without either an uncom- 
fortable sense of guilt or an extraordinary callousness. 
Yet the late-risers, though obeying no rule, for the aban- 
doned sinner recognizes none, become regular in their 
late rising from the gradual fixing power of habit. Even 
Julian Fane, though he regretted his desultory ways, " and 
dwelt with great earnestness on the importance of regular 
habits of work," was perhaps less irregular than he him- 
self believed. We are sure to acquire habits ; what is 
important is not so much that the habits should be 
regular, as that their regularity should be of the kind 
most favourable in the long run to the accomplishment 
of our designs, and this never comes by chance, it is the 
result of an effort of the will in obedience to governing 
wisdom. 

The first question which everyone who has the choice 
of his hours must settle for himself is at what time of 
day he will make his principal effort; for the day of every 
intellectual workman ought to be marked by a kind of 
artistic composition ; there ought to be some one labour 
distinctly recognized as dominant, with others in subordi- 
nation, and subordination of various degrees. Now for 
the hours at which the principal effort ought to be made, 
it is not possible to fix them by the clock so as to be 
suitable for everybody, but a broad rule may be arrived at 
which is applicable to all imaginable cases. The rule is 
this — to do the chief work in the best hours ; to give it 

C c 2 



part x. 

LETTER 



Regularity 

produced by 

habit. 



The 

principal 

effort. 



3 SS 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 



The 

heaviest 

wo; k, iv hen 

it should be 

done. 



Physicians : 
their pre^ 

ference of 

early to 
late work. 



Several 

living 

authors. 



Feelings in 

the 

morning. 



the pick of your day ; and by the day I do not mean 
only the solar day, but the whole of the twenty-four hours. 
There is an important physiological reason for giving the 
best hours to the most important work. The better the 
condition of the brain and the body, and the more favour- 
able the surrounding circumstances, the smaller will be 
the cost to the organization of the labour that has to be 
done. It is always the safest way to do the heaviest (or 
most important) work at the time and under the con- 
ditions which make it the least costly. 

Physicians are unanimous in their preference of early 
to late work; and no doubt, if the question were not 
complicated by other considerations, we could not do 
better than to follow their advice in its simplicity. 
Goethe wrote in the morning, with his faculties refreshed 
by sleep and not yet excited by any stimulant. I could 
mention several living authors of eminence who pursue 
the same plan, and find it favourable alike to health and 
to production. The ruljp which they follow is never to 
write after lunch, leaving the rest of their time free for 
study and society, both of which are absolutely necessary 
to authors. According to this system it is presumed that 
the hours between breakfast and lunch are the best 
hours. In many cases they are so. A person in fair 
health, after taking a light early breakfast without any 
heavier stimulant than tea or coffee, finds himself in a 
state of freshness highly favourable to sound and agree- 
able thinking. His brain will be in still finer order if 
the breakfast has been preceded by a cold bath, with 
friction and a little exercise. The feeling of freshness, 
cleanliness, and moderate exhilaration, will last for 
several hours, and during those hours the intellectual 
work will probably be both lively and reasonable. It 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



389 



is difficult for a man who feels cheerful and refreshed, 
and whose task seems easy and light, to write anything 
morbid or perverse. 

But for the morning to be so good as I have just 
described it, the workman must be quite favourably 
situated. He ought to live in a very tranquil neigh- 
bourhood, and to be as free as possible from anxiety as 
to what the postman may have in reserve for him. If 
his study-window looks out on a noisy street, and if the 
day is sure, as it wears on, to bring anxious business of 
its own, then the increasing noise and the apprehension 
(even though it be almost entirely unconscious) of im- 
pending business, will be quite sufficient to interfere 
with the work of any man who is the least in the world 
nervous, and almost all intellectual labourers are nervous, 
more or less. Men who have the inestimable advantage 
of absolute tranquillity, at all times, do well to work in 
the morning, but those who can only get tranquillity at 
times independent of their own? choice have a strong 
reason for working at those times, whether they happen 
to be in the morning or not. 

In an excellent article on " Work " (evidently written 
by an experienced intellectual workman), which appeared 
in one of the early numbers of the Comhill Magazine, 
and was remarkable alike for practical wisdom and the 
entire absence of traditional dogmatism, the writer speaks 
frankly in favour of night-work. " If you can work at all 
at night, one hour at that time is worth any two in the 
morning. The house is hushed, the brain is clear, the 
distracting influences of the day are at an end. You 
have not to disturb yourself with thoughts of what you 
are about to do, or what you are about to suffer. You 
know that there is a gulf between you and the affairs of 



part x. 

LETTER 
X 



Work in the 
morning: 



Work at 
flight. 



393 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
X. 



Night-work. 
Objections. 



Objections 
to day-work. 



the outside world, almost like the chasm of death ; and 
that you need not take thought of the hioitow until the 
morrow has come* There are few really great thoughts, 
such as the world will not willingly let die, that have not 
been conceived under the quiet stars." 

The medical objection to night-work in the case of 
literary men would probably be that the night is too 
favourable ' to literary production. The author of the 
Essay just quoted says that at night " you only drift into 
deeper silence and quicker inspiration. If the right mood 
is upon you, you write on; if not, your pillow awaits 
you." Exactly so ; that is to say, the brain, owing to the 
complete external tranquillity, can so concentrate its 
efforts on the subject in hand as to work itself up into 
a luminous condition which is fed by the most rapid 
destruction of the nervous substance that ever takes 
place within the walls of a human skull. " If the right 
mood is upon you, you write on;" in other words, if 
you have once well lighted your spirit-lamp, it will go on 
burning so long as any spirit is left in it, for the air is so 
tranquil that nothing comes to blow it out. You drift 
into deeper silence and "quicker inspiration." It is 
just this quicker inspiration that the physician dreads. 

Against this objection may -be placed the equally 
serious objection to day-work, that every interruption, 
when you are particularly anxious not to be interrupted, 
causes a definite loss and injury to the nervous system. 
The choice must therefore be made between two dangers, 
and if they are equally balanced there can be no hesita- 
tion, because all the literary interests of an author are 
on the side of the most tranquil time. Literary work is 
always sure to be much better done when there is no 
fear of disturbance than under the apprehension of it ; 



INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. 



39 1 



and precisely the same amount of cerebral effort will 
produce, when the work is uninterrupted, not only better 
writing, but a much greater quantity of writing. The 
knowledge that he is working well and productively is 
an element of health to every workman because it en- 
courages cheerful habits of mind. 

In the division of time it is an excellent rule for 
adults to keep it as much as possible in la?'ge masses, not 
giving a quarter of an hour to one occupation and a 
quarter to another, but giving three, four, or five hours to 
one thing at a time. In the case of children an opposite 
practice should be followed ; they are able to change 
their attention from one subject to another much more 
easily than we can, whilst at the same time they 
camiot fix their minds for very long without cerebral 
fatigue leading to temporary incapacity. The custom 
prevalent in schools, of making the boys learn several 
different things in the course of the day, is therefore 
founded upon the necessities of the boy-nature, though 
most grown men would find that changes so frequent 
would, for them, have all the inconveniences of interrup- 
tion. To boys they come as relief, to men as interruption. 
The reason is that the physical condition of the brain is 
different in the two cases ; but in our loose way of talking 
about these things we may say that the boy's ideas are 
superficial, like the plates and dishes on the surface of a 
dinner-table, which may be rapidly changed without incon- 
venience, whereas the man's ideas, having all struck root 
down to the very depths of his nature, are more like the 
plants in a garden, which cannot be removed without a 
temporary loss both of vigour and of beauty, and the loss 
cannot be instantaneously repaired. For a man to do 
his work thoroughly well, it is necessary that he should 



part x. 

LETTER 
X. 



Time kept 
in large 
masses- 



Children 

require 

frequent 

change- 



Boys 
and men. 



392 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
X. 



Rapid 
tuni?ig of 
the mind' 



Cuvier. 



Wellington. 



Choice of 
occupations. 



dwell in it long enough at a time to get all the powers 
of his mind fully under command with reference to the 
particular work in hand, and he cannot do this without 
tuning his whole mind to the given diapason, as a tunei 
tunes a piano. Some men can tune their minds more 
rapidly, as violins are tuned, and this faculty may to a 
certain extent be acquired by efforts of the will very 
frequently repeated. Cuvier had this faculty in the most 
eminent degree. One of his biographers says : " His 
extreme facility for study, and of directing all the powers 
of his mind to diverse occupations of study, from one 
quarter of an hour to another, was one of the most 
extraordinary qualities of his mind." The Duke of 
Wellington also cultivated the habit (inestimably valuable 
to a public man) of directing the whole of his attention 
to the subject under consideration, however frequently 
that subject might happen to be changed. But although 
men of exceptional power and very exceptional flexi- 
bility may do this with apparent impunity, that still 
depends very much on the nature of the occupation. 
There are some occupations which are not incompatible 
with a fragmentary division of time, because these occu- 
pations are themselves fragmentary. For example, you 
may study languages in phrase-books during very small 
spaces of time, because the complete phrase is in itself a 
very small thing, but you could not so easily break and 
resume the thread of an elaborate argument. I suspect 
that though Cuvier appeared to his contemporaries a man 
remarkably able to leave off and resume his work at will, 
he must have taken care to do work that would bear 
interruption at those times when he knew himself to be 
most liable to it. And although, when a man's time is 
unavoidably broken up into fragments, no talent of a 



INTELLECTUAL H YGIENICS. 



393 



merely auxiliary kind can be more precious than that of 
turning each of those fragments to advantage, it is still 
true that he whose time is at his own disposal will do his 
work most calmly, most deliberately, and therefore on 
the whole most thoroughly and perfectly, when he keeps 
it in fine masses. The mere knowledge that you have three 
or four clear hours before you is in itself a great help to 
the spirit of thoroughness, both in study and in produc- 
tion. It is agreeable too, when the sitting has come to 
an end, to perceive that a definite advance is the result 
of it, and advance in anything is scarcely perceptible in 
less than three or four hours. 

There are several pursuits which cannot be followed in 
fragments of time, on account of the necessary prepara- 
tions. It is useless to begin oil-painting unless you have 
full time to set your palette properly, to get your canvas 
into a proper state for working upon, to pose the model 
as you wish, and settle down to work with everything as 
it ought to be. In landscape-painting from nature you 
require the time to go to the selected place, and after 
your arrival to arrange your materials and shelter yourself 
from the sun. In scientific pursuits the preparations are 
usually at least equally elaborate, and often much more 
so. To prepare for an experiment, or for a dissection, 
takes time which we feel to be disproportionate when it 
leaves too little for the scientific work itself. It is for 
this reason more frequently than for any other that 
amateurs who begin in enthusiasm, so commonly, after a 
while, abandon the objects of their pursuit. 

There is a kind of slavery to which no really intellectual 
man would ever voluntarily submit, a minute obedience 
to the clock. Very conscientious people often impose 
upon themselves this sort of slavery. A person who has 



PART X. 

LETTER 
X. 



Utility of , 
masses 
of time- 



Pursuits 
that 

cannot be 
followed in 
fragments 

of time. 



Minute 

obedience to 

the clock. 



394 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
X. 



Books 
of agenda. 



hampered himself with rules of this kind will take up a 
certain book, for instance, when the clock strikes nine, 
and begin at yesterday's mark, perhaps in the middle of 
a paragraph. Then he will read with great steadiness 
till a quarter-past nine, and exactly on the instant when 
the minute-hand gets opposite the dot, he will shut his 
book, however much the passage may happen to inte- 
rest him. It was in allusion to good people of this kind 
that Sir Walter Scott said he had never known a man of 
genius who could be perfectly regular in his habits, whilst 
he had known many blockheads who could. It is easy 
to see that a minute obedience to the clock is unintellec- 
tual in its very nature, for the intellect is not a piece of 
mechanism as a clock is, and cannot easily be made to 
act like one. There may be perfect correspondence 
between the locomotives and the clocks on a railway, 
for if the clocks are pieces of mechanism the locomotives 
are so likewise, but the intellect always needs a certain 
looseness and latitude as to time. Very broad rules are 
the best, such as "Write in the morning, read in the 
afternoon, see friends in the evening," or else " Study 
one day and produce another alternately," or even "Work 
one week and see the world another week alternately." 

There is a fretting habit, much recommended by men 
of business and of great use to them, of writing the 
evening before the duties of the day in a book of agenda. 
If this is done at all by intellectual men with reference 
to their pursuits, it ought to be done in a very broad, 
loose way, never minutely. An intellectual worker ought 
never to make it a matter of conscience (in intellectual 
labour) to do a predetermined quantity of little things. 
This sort of conscientiousness frets and worries, and is 
the enemy of all serenity of thought. 



PART XL 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



LETTER I. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF ABILITY AND CULTURE WHO HAD 
NOT DECIDED ABOUT HIS PROFESSION. 

The Church— Felicities and advantages of the clerical profession- 
Its elevated ideal— That it is favourable to noble studies— French 
priests and English clergymen— The professional point of view 
—Difficulty of disinterested thinking— Coloured light— Want 
of strict accuracy— Quotation from a sermon- The drawback to 
the clerical life— Provisional nature of intellectual conclusions— 
The legal profession— That it affords gratification to the intel- 
lectual powers— Want of intellectual disinterestedness in lawyers 
—Their absorption in professional life— Anecdote of a London 
lawyer— Superiority of lawyers in their sense of affairs— Medicine 
—The study of it a fine preparation for the intellectual life- 
Social rise of medical men coincident with the mental progress 
of communities— Their probable future influence on education- 
The heroic side of their profession— The military and naval 
professions— Bad effect of the privation of solitude— Interruption 
—Anecdote of Cuvier— The fine arts— In what way they are 
favourable to thought— Intellectual leisure of artists— Reasoning 
artists— Sciences included in the fine arts. 

It may be taken for granted that to a mind constituted 
as yours is, no profession will be satisfactory which does 
not afford free play to the intellectual powers. You 



PART XT. 

LETTER 



39 6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 



Felicities 

and 

advantages 

of holy 

orders. 



French 
priests. 



The English 
clergy. 



might no doubt exercise resolution enough to bind your- 
self down to uncongenial work for a term of years, but it 
would be with the intention of retiring as soon as you 
had realized a competency. The happiest life is that 
which constantly exercises and educates what is best 
in us. 

You had thoughts, at one time, of the Church, and 
the Church would have suited you in many respects very 
happily, yet not, I think, in all respects. The clerical 
profession has many great felicities and advantages : it 
educates and develops, by its mild but regular discipline, 
much of our higher nature ; it sets before us an elevated 
ideal, worth striving for at the cost of every sacrifice but 
one, of which I intend to say something farther on ; and 
it offers just that mixture of public and private life which 
best affords the alternation of activity and rest. It is an 
existence in many respects most favourable to the noblest 
studies. It offers the happiest combination of duties that 
satisfy the conscience with leisure for the cultivation of the 
mind ; it gives the easiest access to all classes of society, 
providing for the parson himself a neutral and indepen- 
dent position, so safe that he need only conduct himself 
properly to preserve it. How superior, from the intellec- 
tual point of view, is this liberal existence to the narrower 
one of a French cure dc campagne 1 I certainly think 
that if a good care has an exceptional genius for sanctity, 
his chances of becoming a perfect saint are better than 
those of a comfortable English incumbent, who is at the 
same time a gentleman and man of the world, but he is 
not nearly so well situated for leading the intellectual 
life. Our own clergy have a sort of middle position 
between the car'e and the layman, which, without at all 
interfering with their spiritual vocation, makes them 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



397 



better judges of the character of laymen and more com- 
pletely in sympathy with it. 

And yet, although the life of a clergyman is favourable 
to culture in many ways, it is not wholly favourable to 
it. There exists, in clerical thinking generally, just one 
restriction or impediment, which is the overwhelming 
importance of the professional point of view. Of all 
the professions the ecclesiastical one is that which most 
decidedly and most constantly affects the judgment of 
persons and opinions. It is peculiarly difficult for a 
clergyman to attain disinterestedness in his thinking, to 
accept truth just as it may happen to present kself, with- 
out passionately desiring that one doctrine may turn out 
to be strong in evidence and another unsupported. And 
so we find the clergy, as a class, anxious rather to 
discover aids to faith, than the simple scientific truth . 
and the more the special priestly character develops 
itself, the more we find them disposed to use their 
intellects for the triumph of principles that are decided 
upon beforehand. Sometimes this disposition leads them 
to see the acts of laymen in a coloured light and to speak 
of them without strict accuracy. Here is an example 
of what I mean. A Jesuit priest preached a sermon 
in London very recently, in which he said that "in 
Germany, France, Italy, and England, gigantic efforts 
were being made to rob Christian children of the bless- 
ing of a Christian education." " Herod, though dead," 
the preacher continued, "has left his mantle behind him j 
and I wish that the soldiers of Herod in those countries 
would plunge their swords into the breasts of little 
children while they were innocent, rather than have their 
souls destroyed by means of an unchristian and.un- 
catholic education." No doubt this is very earnest and 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Influence of 

the clerical 

profession 

on the 

judgment. 



Coloured 
light. 



Extract 
front a 
sermon. 



393 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 



Feeling of 
tlie laity. 



The 

ecclesias- 
tical 

tempera- 
ment. 



sincere, but it is not accurate and just thinking. The 
laity in the countries the preacher mentioned have 
certainly a strong tendency to exclude theology from 
State schools, because it is so difficult for a modern State 
to impose any kind of theological teaching without 
injustice to minorities ; but the laity do not desire to 
deprive children of whatever instruction may be given 
to them by the clergy of their respective communions. 
May I add, that to the mind of a layman it seems a 
sanguinary desire that all little children should have 
swords plunged into their breasts rather than be taught 
in schools not clerically directed ? The exact truth is, 
that the powerful lay element is certainly separating itself 
from the ecclesiastical element all over Europe, because 
it is found by experience that the two have a great and 
increasing difficulty in working harmoniously together, 
but the ecclesiastical element is detached and not de- 
stroyed. The quotation I have just made is in itself a 
sufficient illustration of that very peculiarity in the more 
exalted ecclesiastical temperament, which often makes it 
so difficult for priests and governments, in these times, 
to get on comfortably together. Here is first a very 
inaccurate statement, and then an outburst of most 
passionate feeling, whereas the intellect desires the 
strictest truth and the most complete disinterestedness. 
As the temper of the laity becomes more and more intel- 
lectual (and that is the direction of its movement), the 
sacerdotal habit will become more and more remote 
from it. 

The clerical life has many strong attractions for the 
intellectual, and just one drawback to counterbalance 
diem. It offers tranquillity, shelter from the interrup- 
tions and anxieties of the more active professions, and 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



399 



powerful means of influence ready to hand; but it is 
compatible with intellectual freedom and with the satis- 
faction of the conscience, only just so long as the priest 
really remains a believer in the details of his religion. 
Now, although we may reasonably hope to retain the 
chief elements of our belief, although what a man be- 
lieves at twenty-five is always what he will most probably 
believe at fifty, still, in an age when free inquiry is the 
common habit of cultivated people of our sex, we may 
well hesitate before taking upon ourselves any formal 
engagement for the future, especially in matters of 
detail. The intellectual spirit does not regard its con- 
clusions as being at any time final, but always pro- 
visional ; we hold what we believe to be the truth until 
we can replace it by some more perfect truth, but can- 
not tell how much of to-day's beliefs to-morrow will 
retain or reject. It may be observed, however, that the 
regular performance of priestly functions is in itself a 
great help to permanence in belief by connecting it 
closely with practical habit, so that the clergy do really 
and honestly often retain through life their hold on 
early beliefs which as laymen they might have lost. 

The profession of the law provides ample opportunities 
for a critical intellect with a strong love of accuracy and 
a robust capacity for hard work, besides which it is the 
best of worldly educations. Some lawyers love their work 
as passionately as artists do theirs, others dislike it very 
heartily, most of them seem to take it as a simple business 
to be done for daily bread. Lawyers whose heart is in 
their work are invariably men of superior ability, which 
proves that there is something in it that affords gratifi- 
cation to the intellectual powers. However, in speaking 
of lawyers, I feel ignorant and on the outside, because 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Difficulty 
of engage' 
mentsfor 

the 
futurei 



The iegai 
profession. 



400 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, 



PART XL 

LETTER 
I. 



Lawyers- 



Often 

absorbed in 

business. 



A London 
lawyer. 



their profession is one of which the interior feelings can 
be known to no one who has not practised. One thing 
seems clear, they get the habit of employing the whole 
strength and energy of their minds for especial and 
temporary ends, the purpose being the service of the 
client, certainly not the revelation of pure truth. Hence, 
although they become very acute, and keen judges of 
that side of human nature which they habitually see (not 
the best side), they are not more disinterested than clergy- 
men. 1 Sometimes they take up some study outside of 
their profession and follow it disinterestedly, but this is 
rare. A busy lawyer is much more likely than a clergy- 
man to become entirely absorbed in his professional life, 
because it requires so much more intellectual exertion. 
I remember asking a very clever lawyer who lived in 
London, whether he ever visited an exhibition of pictures, 
and he answered me by the counter-inquiry whether I 
had read Chitty on Contracts, Collier on Partnerships, 
Taylor on Evidence, Cruse's Digest, or Smith's Mer- 
cantile Law? This seemed to me at the time a good 
instance of the way a professional habit may narrow 
one's views of things, for these law-books were written 
for lawyers alone, whilst the picture exhibitions were 
intended for the public generally. My friend's answer 
would have been more to the point if I had inquired 
whether he had read Linton on Colours, and Burnet on 
Chiaroscuro. 

There is just one situation in which we all may feel 
for a short time as lawyers feel habitually. Suppose that 
two inexperienced players sit down to a game of chess, 
and that each is backed by a clever person who is 

1 The word "disinterested" is used hfxe in the sense explained in 
Part II. Letter m. 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



401 



constantly giving him hints. The two backers represent 
the lawyers, and the players represent their clients. 
There is not much disinterested thought in a situation 
of this kind, but there is a strong stimulus to acuteness. 

I think that lawyers are often superior to philosophers 
in their sense of what is relatively important in human 
affairs with reference to limited spaces of time, such as 
half a century. They especially know the enormous 
importance of custom, which the speculative mind very 
readily forgets, and they have in the highest degree that 
peculiar sense which fits men for dealing with others in 
the affairs of ordinary life. In this respect they are 
remarkably superior to clergymen, and superior also to 
artists and men of science. 

The profession of medicine is, of all fairly lucrative 
professions, the one best suited to the development of 
the intellectual life. Having to deal continually with 
science, being constantly engaged in following and 
observing the operation of natural laws, it produces a 
sense of the working of those laws which prepares the 
mind for bold and original speculation, and a reliance 
upon their unfailing regularity, which gives it great 
firmness and assurance. A medical education is the 
best possible preparation for philosophical pursuits, be- 
cause it gives them a solid basis in the ascertainable. 
The estimation in which these studies are held is an 
accurate meter of the intellectual advancement of a 
community. When the priest is reverenced as a being 
above ordinary humanity, and the physician slightly 
esteemed, the condition of society is sure to be that of 
comparative ignorance and barbarism ; and it is one of 
several signs which indicate barbarian feeling in our own 
aristocracy, that it has a contempt for the study of medi- 

r> d 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Lawyers, 
their sense 
of affairs. 



Medicine, 
its suitable- 
ness as a 
profession 

for the 
intellectical. 



402 



THE INTELLECTUAL LITE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Medical 
influence on 
ed7ication. 



Heroism of 

the medical 
profession. 



Routine. 



Military 

and 

naval 

professions. 



cine. The progress of society towards enlightenment is 
marked by the steady social rise of the surgeon and the 
physician, a rise which still continues, even in Western 
Europe. It is probable that before very long the medical 
profession will exercise a powerful influence upon general 
education, and take an active share in it. There are 
very strong reasons for the opinion that schoolmasters 
educated in medicine would be peculiarly well qualified 
to train both body and mind for a vigorous and active 
manhood. An immense advantage, even from the intel- 
lectual point of view, in the pursuit of medicine and 
surgery, is that they supply a discipline in mental heroism. 
Other professions do this also, but not to the same 
degree. The combination of an accurate training in 
positive science with the habitual contempt of danger 
and contemplation of suffering and death, is the finest 
possible preparation for noble studies and arduous dis- 
coveries. I ought to add, however, that medical men 
in the provinces, when they have not any special enthu- 
siasm for their work, seem peculiarly liable to the 
deadening influences ot routine, and easily fall behind 
their age. The medical periodicals provide the best 
remedy for this. 

The military and naval professions are too active, and 
too much bound to obedience in their activity, for the 
highest intellectual pursuits ; but their greatest evil in 
this respect is the continual privation of solitude, and 
the frequency of interruption. A soldier's life in the 
higher ranks, when there is great responsibility and the 
necessity for personal decision, undoubtedly leads to the 
most brilliant employment of the mental powers, and 
develops a manliness of character which is often of the 
greatest use in intellectual work ; so that a man of science 






TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



403 



may find his force augmented, and better under control, 
for having passed through a military experience ; but the 
life of barracks and camps is destructive to continuity of 
thinking. The incompatibility becomes strikingly mani- 
fest when we reflect how impossible it would have been 
for Ney or Massena to do the work of Cuvier or Comte. 
Cuvier even declined to accompany the expedition to 
Egypt, notwithstanding the prospects of advantage that 
it offered. The reason he gave for this refusal was, that 
he could do more for science in the tranquillity of the 
Jardin des Plantes. He was a strict economist of time, 
and dreaded the loss of it involved in following an army, 
even though his mission would have been purely scien- 
tific. How much more would Cuvier have dreaded the 
interruptions of a really military existence ! It is these 
interruptions, and not any want of natural ability, that 
are the true explanation of the intellectual poverty which 
characterizes the military profession. Of all the liberal 
professions it is the least studious. 

Let me say a word in conclusion about the practical 
pursuit of the fine arts. Painters are often remarkable for 
pleasant conversational power, and a degree of intelligence 
strikingly superior to their literary culture. This is because 
the processes of their art can be followed, at least under 
certain circumstances, by the exercise of hand and eye, 
directed merely by artistic taste and experience, whilst 
the intellect is left free either for reflection or conversa- 
tion. Rubens liked to be read to when he painted; 
many artists like to hear people talk, and to take a share 
occasionally in the conversation. The truth is that 
artists, even when they work very assiduously, do in 
fact enjoy great spaces of intellectual leisure, and often 
profit by them. Painting itself is also a fine discipline 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
I. 



Cuvier : 

his refusal 

to s?o to 

Egypt. 



Painters : 

their i7itelli- 

getice* 



Rubens. 



404 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
I. 

Intellectual 
artists . 



Art includes 
tioo sciences. 



for some of the best faculties of the mind, though it is 
well known that the most gifted artists think least about 
their art. Still there is a large class of painters, including 
many eminent ones, who proceed ifitellectnally in the 
execution of their works, who reason them out philo- 
sophically step by step, and exercise a continual criticism 
upon their manual labour as it goes forward. I find, as 
I know art and artists better, that this class is more 
numerous than is commonly suspected, and that the 
charming effects which we believe to be the result of pure 
inspiration have often been elaborately reasoned out like 
a problem in mathematics. We are very apt to forget 
that art includes a great science, the science of natural 
appearances, and that the technical work of painters and 
engravers cannot go forward safely without the profound- 
est knowledge of certain delicate materials, this being 
also a science, and a difficult one. The common ten- 
dency is to underrate (from ignorance) what is intellectual 
in the practice of the fine arts ; and yet the artists of 
past times have left evidence enough that they thought 
about art, and thought deeply. Artists are often illite- 
rate ; but it is possible to be at the same time illiterate 
and intellectual ; as we see frequent examples of book- 
learning in people who have scarcely a single idea of 
their own. 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



405 



LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD LITERARY AND ARTISTIC 
TASTES, BUT NO PROFESSION. 

The world only recognizes performance — Uselessness of botch-work 
— Vastness of the interval between botch-work and handicraft — 
Delusions of the well-to-do — Quotation from Charles Lever — 
Indifference, and even contempt, for skill — Moral contempt for 
skill — The contempt which comes from the pride of knowledge 
— Intellectual value of skill and of professional discipline. 

It is not a graceful thing for me to say, nor pleasant for 
you to hear, that what you have done hitherto in art and 
literature is neither of any value in itself nor likely to 
lead you to that which is truly and permanently satis- 
•fying. I believe you have natural ability, though it 
would not be easy for any critic to measure its degree 
when it has never been developed by properly-directed 
work. Most critics would probably err on the unfavour- 
able side, for we are easily blind to powers that are little 
more than latent. To see anything encouraging in your 
present performance, it would need the sympathy and 
intelligence of the American sculptor Greenough, of 
whom it was said that " his recognition was not limited 
to achievement, but extended to latent powers." The 
world, however, recognizes nothing short of performance, 
because the performance is what it needs, and promises 
are of no use to it. 

In this rough justice of the world there is a natural 
distribution of rewards. You will be paid, in fame and 
money, for all excellent work ; and you will be paid in 
money, though not in fame, for all work that is even 
simply good, provided it be of a kind that the world 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
II. 



Greenough, 

the A meri- 

can sculptor. 



Rewards 
for work. 



406 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XL 

LETTER 
II. 



Internal 
between 
botch-work 
and handi- 
craft. 

Delusions of 
the well- 
to-do. 



A ngitstus 
Bramleigrh. 



needs, or fancies that it needs. But you will never be 
paid at all for botch-work, neither in money nor in fame, 
nor by your own inward approval. 

For we all of us either know that our botch-work is 
worthless, or else have serious misgivings about it. That 
which is less commonly realized by those who have not 
undergone the test of professional labour is the vastness 
of the interval that separates botch-work from handicraft, 
and the difficulty of getting over it. " There are few 
delusions," Charles Lever said in " The Bramleighs," 
" more common with well-to-do people than the belief 
that if ' put to it ' they could earn their own livelihood in 
a variety of ways. Almost every man has some two or 
three or more accomplishments which he fancies would 
be quite adequate to his support ; and remembering with 
what success the exercise of these gifts has ever been 
hailed in the society of his friends, he has a sort of 
generous dislike to be obliged to eclipse some poor 
drudge of a professional, who, of course, will be con- 
signed to utter oblivion after his own performance. 
Augustus Bramleigh was certainly not a conceited or 
a vain man, and yet he had often in his palmy days 
imagined how easy it would be for him to provide for 
his own support. He was something of a musician ; he 
sang pleasingly; he drew a little; he knew something 
of three or four modern languages ; he had that sort of 
smattering acquaintance with questions of religion, poli- 
tics, and literature which the world calls being 'well- 
informed,' and yet nothing short of the grave necessity 
revealed to him that towards the object of securing a 
livelihood a cobbler in his bulk was out-and-out his 
master. The world has no need of the man of small 
I acquirements, and would rather have its shoes mended 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



407 



by the veriest botch of a professional than by the cleverest 
amateur that ever studied a Greek sandal." 

Something of this illusion, which Charles Lever has 
touched so truly, may be due to a peculiarity of the 
English mind in its present (not quite satisfactory) stage 
of development, a peculiarity which I am not the first 
to point out, since it has been already indicated by 
Mr. Poynter, the distinguished artist ; and I think that 
this peculiarity is to be found in very great force, perhaps 
in greater force than elsewhere, in that well-to-do English 
middle class in which you have been born and educated. 
It consists in a sort of indifference to skill of all kinds, 
which passes into something not very far from active 
contempt when a call is made for attention, recognition, 
admiration. The source of this feeling will probably be 
found in the inordinate respect for wealth, between which 
and highly developed personal skill, in anything, there is 
a certain antagonism or incompatibility. The men of 
real skill are almost always men who earn their living 
by their skill. The feeling of the middle-class capitalist 
concerning the skilful man may be expressed, not un- 
justly, as follows : " Yes, he is very clever; he may well 
be clever — it is his trade ; he gets his living by it." This 
is held to exonerate us from the burden of admiration, 
ard there is not any serious interest in the achievements 
of human endeavour as evidence of the marvellous 
natural endowments and capabilities of the human 
organism. In some minds the indifference to skill is 
more active and grows into very real, though not openly 
expressed, contempt. This contempt is partly moral. 
The skilful man always rejoices in his skill with a 
heaven-bestowed joy and delight — one of the purest and 
most divine pleasures given by God to man — an en- 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
II. 



Indifference 
to skill. 



Its source> 



Contempt 
for skill. 



408 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
II. 



Contempt 

for skill 

due to 

pride of 

knowledge. 



Skill is 
knowledge 
tested and 
perfected 



couragement to labour, and a reward, the best reward, 
after his arduous apprenticeship. But there is a sour 
and severe spirit, hating all innocent pleasures, which 
despises the gladness of the skilful as so much personal 
vanity. 

There is also the contempt for skill which comes from 
the pride of knowledge. To attain skill in anything a 
degree of application is necessary which absorbs more 
time than the acquisition of knowledge about the 
thing, so that the remarkably skilful man is not likely 
to be the erudite man. There have been instances of 
men who possessed both skill and learning. The 
American sculptor Greenough, and the English painter 
Dyce, were at the same time both eminently skilful in 
their craft and eminently learned out of it ; but the com- 
bination is very rare. Therefore the possession of skill 
has come to be considered presumptive evidence of a 
want of general information. 

But the truth is that professional skill is knowledge 
tested and perfected by practical application, and there- 
fore has a great intellectual value. Professional life is to 
private individuals what active warfare is to a military 
state. It brings to light every deficiency, and reveals 
our truest needs. And therefore it seems to me a matter 
for regret that you should pass your existence in irre- 
sponsible privacy, and not have your attainments tested 
by the exigencies of some professional career. The 
discipline which such a career affords, and which no 
private resolution can ever adequately replace, may be 
all that is wanting to your development 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



409 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
III. 



LETTER III. 

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO WISHED TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO 
LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION. 

Byron's vexation at the idea of poetry being considered a profession 
— Buffon could not bear to be called a naturalist — Cuvier would 
. not be called a Hellenist — Faraday's life not professional — The 
intellectual life frequently protected by professions outside of it 
— Professional work ought to be plain business work — Michelet's 
account of the incubation of a book — Necessity for too great 
rapidity of production in professional literature — It does not pay 
to do your best — Journalism and magazine-writing — Illustration 
from a sister art — Privilege of an author to be allowed to write 
little. 

Do you remember how put out Byron was when some 
reviewer spoke of Wordsworth as being " at the head of 
the profession " ? Byron's vexation was not entirely due 
to jealousy of Wordsworth, though that may have hac 1 
something to do with it, nor was it due either to ai 
aristocratic dislike of being in a "profession" himseb 
though this feeling may have had a certain influence 
it was due to a proper sense of the dignity of the in- 
tellectual life. Buffon could not bear to be called a 
"naturalist," and Cuvier in the same way disliked the 
title of Hellenist, because it sounded professional : he said 
that though he knew more Greek than all the Academy 
he was not a Hellenist as Gail was, because he did not 
live by Greek. 

Now, if this feeling had arisen merely from a dislike to 
having it supposed that one is obliged to earn his own 
living, it would have been a contemptibly vulgar sen- 
timent, whoever professed it. Nothing can be more 



The profes- 
sion of 
Poetry 
Byron's dis- 
like of the 
term- 



Buff on. 
Cuvier. 



4io 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Faraday 's 
life not 



honourable to a man than to earn his bread by honest 
industry of any kind, whether it be manual or intellectual, 
and still I feel with Byron, and Bufifon, and Cuvier, that 
the great instruments of the world's intellectual culture 
ought not to be, in the ordinary sense, professions. 
Byron said that poetry, as he understood it, was " an 
art, an attribute," but not what is understood by a "pro- 
fession." Surely the same is true of all the highest in- 
tellectual work, in whatever kind. You could scarcely 
consider Faraday's life to be what is commonly under- 
frojeYsioliai j stood by a professional life. Tyndall says that if Faraday 
had chosen to employ his talents in analytical chemistry 
he might have realized a fortune of 150,000/. Now that 
would have been a professional existence ; but the career 
which Faraday chose (happily for science) was not pro- 
fessional, but intellectual. The distinction between the 
professional and the intellectual lives is perfectly clear in 
my own mind, and therefore I ought to be able to express 
it clearly. Let me make the attempt. 

The purpose of a profession, of a profession pure and 
simple, is to turn knowledge and talent to pecuniary 
profit. On the other hand, the purpose of cultivated 
men, or men of genius, who work in an unprofessional 
spirit, is to increase knowledge, or make it more accurate, 
or else simply to give free exercise to high faculties which 
demand it. The distinction is so clear and trenchant 
that most intellectual men, whose private fortunes are 
not large, prefer to have a profession distinct from their 
higher intellectual work, in order to secure the perfect 
independence of the latter. Mr. Smiles, in his valuable 
book on " Character," gives a list of eminent intellectual 
men who have pursued real professional avocations of 
various kinds separately from their literary or scientific 



Professions, 
purpose of. 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



411 



activity, and he mentions an observation of Gifford's 
which is much to my present purpose : — " Gifford, the 
editor of the Quarterly, who knew the drudgery of writing 
for a living, once observed that ' a single hour of com- 
position, won from the business of the day, is worth 
more than the whole day's toil of him who works at the 
trade of literature : in the one case, the spirit comes joy- 
fully to refresh itself, like a hart to the water-brooks ; in 
the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and jaded, 
with the dogs of hunger and necessity behind.' " So 
Coleridge said that " three hours of leisure, unalloyed by 
any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as 
a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature 
a larger product of what is truly genial than weeks of 
compulsion." Coleridge's idea of a profession was, that 
it should be " some regular employment which could be 
carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum 
only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are 
requisite to its faithful discharge." Without in the least 
desiring to undervalue good professional work of any 
kind, I may observe that, to be truly professional, it 
ought to be always at command, and therefore that the 
average power of the man's intellect, not his rare flashes 
of highest intellectual illumination, ought to suffice for it. 
Professional work ought always to be plain business work, 
requiring knowledge and skill, but not any effort of 
genius. For example, in medicine, it is professional 
work to prescribe a dose or amputate a limb, but not to 
discover the nervous system or the circulation of the 
blood. 

If literature paid sufficiently well to allow it, a literary 
man might very wisely consider study to be his profession, 
and not production. He would then study regularly, say 



PART XL 

LETTER 

III. 



The trade 
of literature. 



Coleridge. 



His idea of 
a profession. 



Professional 
work. 



Study. 



412 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Incubation. 



Book- 
making. 



Hack- 
writing. 



six hours a day, and write when he had something to 
say, and really wanted to express it His book, when it 
carne out, would have had time to be properly hatched, 
and would probably have natural life in it. Michelet 
says of one of his books : " Cette oeuvre a du moins le 
caractere d'etre venue comme vient toute vraie creation 
vivante. Elle s'est faite a la chaleur d'une douce 
incubation." J It would be impossible, in so short a 
space, to give a more accurate description of the natural 
manner in which a book comes into existence. A book 
ought always to be " fait a la chaleur d'une douce 
incubation." 

But when you make a profession of literature this is 
what you can hardly ever get leave to do. Literary men 
require to see something of the world ; they can hardly be 
hermits, and the world cannot be seen without a constant 
running expenditure, which at the end of the year repre- 
sents an income. Men of culture and refinement really 
cannot live like very poor people without deteriorating in 
refinement, and falling behind in knowledge of the world. 
When they are married, and have families, they can 
hardly let their families live differently from themselves; 
so that there are the usual expenses of the English pro- 
fessional classes to be met, and these are heavy when they 
have to be got out of the profits of literature. The con- 
sequence is, that if a book is to be written prudently it 
must be written quickly, and with the least amount ol 
preparatory labour that can possibly be made to serve. 
This is very different from the "douce incubation" of 
Michelet. Goldsmith said of hack-writing, that it was 

1 " This work has at any rate the character of having come into 
the world like every really living creation. It has been produced by 
the heat of a gentle incubation." 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



413 



difficult to imagine a combination more prejudicial to 
taste than that of the author whose interest it is to write 
as much as possible, and the bookseller, whose interest it 
is to pay as little as possible. The condition of authors 
has no doubt greatly improved since Goldsmith's time, 
but still the fact remains that the most careful and finished 
writing, requiring extensive preparatory study, is a luxury 
in which the professional writer can only indulge himself 
at great risk. Careful writing does, no doubt, occasionally 
pay for the time it costs; but such writing is more 
commonly done by men who are either independent by 
fortune, or who make themselves, as authors, independent 
by the pursuit of some other profession, than by regular 
men of letters whose whole income is derived from their 
inkstands. And when, by way of exception, the hack- 
writer does produce very highly-finished and concentrated 
work, based upon an elaborate foundation of hard study, 
that work is seldom professional in the strictest sense, 
but is a labour of love, outside the hasty journalism or 
magazine-writing that wins his daily bread. In cases of 
this kind it is clear that the best work is not done as a 
regular part of professional duty, and that the author 
might as well earn his bread in some other calling, if he 
still had the same amount of leisure for the composition 
of real literature. 

The fault I find with writing as a profession is that // 
does not pay to do your best. I don't mean to insinuate 
that downright slovenly or careless work is the most 
profitable ; but I do mean to say that any high degree 
of conscientiousness, especially in the way of study and 
research, is a direct injury to the professional writer's 
purse. Suppose, for example, that he is engaged in 
reviewing a book, and is to get 3/. \os. for the review 



PART XI. 

LETTER 

III. 



Finished 
writing. 



Evil of 

professional 
authorship. 



Difficulty of 
study and 
research. 



4H 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART X. 

LETTER 
III. 

Difficulty of 
thoroughness 
/or hack- 
writers. 



Discourage- 
ment to 
study. 



Sainte- 

Beuve a trite 

s tiide Jit. 



Printed 
talk. 



Journalism. 



when it is written. If by the accident of previous 
accumulation his knowledge is already fully equal to the 
demand upon it, the review may be written rapidly, and 
the day's work will have been a profitable one ; but if, 
on the other hand, it is necessary to consult several 
authorities, to make some laborious researches, then the 
reviewer is placed in a dilemma between literary thorough- 
ness and duty to his family. He cannot spend a week 
in reading up a subject for the sum of 3/. \os. Is it not 
much easier to string together a few phrases which will 
effectually hide his ignorance from everybody but the 
half-dozen enthusiasts who have mastered the subject of 
the book ? It is strange that the professional pursuit of 
literature should be a direct discouragement to study ; 
yet it is so. There are hack-writers who study, and they 
deserve much honour for doing so, since the temptations 
the other way are always so pressing and immediate. 
Sainte-Beuve was a true student, loving literature for its 
own sake, and preparing for his articles with a diligence 
rare in the profession. But he was scarcely a hack- 
writer, having a modest independency, and living besides 
with the quiet frugality of a bachelor. 

The truth seems to be that literature of the highest 
kind can only in the most exceptional cases be made a 
profession, yet that a skilful writer may use his pen pro- 
fessionally if he chooses. The production of the printed 
talk of the day is a profession, requiring no more than 
average ability, and the tone and temper of ordinary 
educated men. The outcome of it is journalism and 
magazine-writing ; and now let me say a word or two 
about these. 

The highest kind of journalism is very well done in 
England ; the men who do it are often either highly 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



415 



educated, or richly gifted by nature, or both. The practice 
of journalism is useful to an author in giving him a 
degree of readiness and rapidity, a skill in turning his 
materials to immediate account, and a power of present- 
ing one or two points effectively, which may often be 
valuable in literature of a more permanent order. The 
danger of it may be illustrated by a reference to a sister 
art. I was in the studio of an English landscape-painter 
when some pictures arrived from an artist in the country 
to go along with his own to one of the exhibitions. They 
were all very pretty and very clever — indeed, so clever 
were they, that their cleverness was almost offensive — 
and so long as they were looked at by themselves, the 
brilliance of them was rather dazzling. But the instant 
they were placed by the side of thoroughly careful and 
earnest work, it became strikingly evident that they had 
been painted hastily, and would be almost immediately 
exhausted by the purchaser. Now these pictures were 
the journalism of painting ; and my friend told me that 
when once an. artist has got into the habit of doing 
hasty work like that, he seldom acquires better habits 
afterwards. 

Professional writers who follow journalism for its 
immediate profits, are liable in like manner to retain the 
habit of diffuseness in literature which ought to be more 
finished and more concentrated. Therefore, although 
journalism is a good teacher of promptitude and decision, 
it often spoils a hand for higher literature by incapacita- 
ting it for perfect finish ; and it is better for a writer who 
has ambition to write little, but always his best, than to 
dilute himself in daily columns. One of the greatest 
privileges which an author can aspire to is to be allowed to 
write little, and that is a privilege which the professional. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
III. 



Parallel 

between 

painting and 

jotimalism. 



Effects of 
Journalism 

oil literary 
composition- 



4i6 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
III. 



LETTER 
IV. 



Two classes. 



writer does not enjoy, except in such rare instances 
as that of Tennyson, whose careful finish is as prudent 
in the professional sense as it is satisfactory to the 
scrupulous fastidiousness of the artist. 



LETTER IV. 

TO AN ENERGETIC AND SUCCESSFUL COTTON MANUFACTURER. 

Two classes in their lower grades inevitably hostile — The spiritual 
and temporal powers— The functions of both not easily exercised 
by the same person — Humboldt, Faraday, Livingstone — The 
difficulty about time — Limits to the energy of the individual — 
Jealousy between the classes — That this jealousy ought not to 
exist — Some of the sciences based upon an industrial development 
— The work of the intellectual class absolutely necessary in a 
highly civilized community — That it grows in numbers and 
influence side by side with the industrial class. 

Our last conversation together, in the privacy of your 
splendid new drawing-room after the guests had gone 
away and the music had ceased for the night, left me 
under the impression that we had not arrived at a perfect 
understanding of each other. This was due in a great 
measure to my unfortunate incapacity for expressing any- 
thing exactly by spoken words. The constant habit of 
writing, which permits a leisurely selection from one's 
ideas, is often very unfavourable to readiness in conversa- 
tion. Will you permit me, then, to go over the ground 
we traversed, this time in my own way, pen in hand ? 

We represent, you and I, two classes which in their 
lower grades are inevitably hostile; but the superior 
members of these classes ought not to feel any hostility, 
since both are equally necessary to the world. We are, 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



417 



in truth, the spiritual and the temporal powers in their 
most modern form. The chief of industry and the man 
of letters stand to-day in the same relation to each other 
and to mankind as the baron and bishop of the Middle 
Ages. We are not recognized, either of us, by formally 
conferred titles, we are both held to be somewhat intru- 
sive by the representatives of a former order of things, 
and there is, or was until very lately, a certain disposi- 
tion to deny what we consider our natural rights ; but 
we know that our powers are not to be resisted, and 
we have the inward assurance that the forces of nature 
are with us. 

This, with reference to the outer world. But there is 
a want of clearness in the relation between ourselves. 
You understand your great temporal function, which is 
the wise direction of the industry of masses, the accu- 
mulation and distribution of wealth ; but you do not so 
clearly understand the spiritual function of the intel- 
lectual class, and you do not think of it quite justly. 
This want of understanding is called by some of us your 
Philistinism. Will you permit me to explain what the 
intellectual class thinks of you, and what is its opinion 
about itself? 

Pray excuse any appearance of presumption on 
my part if I say we of the intellectual class and you 
of the industrial. My position is something like that 
of the clergyman who reads, "Let him come to me 
or to some other learned and discreet minister of 
God's word," thereby calling himself learned and 
discreet. It is a simple matter of fact that I belong 
to the intellectual class, since I lead its life, just as 
it is a fact that you have a quarter of a million of 
money. 

E E 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Spiritual 

and 

temporal 

powers. 



Misunder- 
standing 
between the 
two. 



4i8 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Want of 

time the chief 

impediment 

to culture. 



Need of 
discoverers. 



Intellectual 
pioneers. 



First, I want to show that the existence of my class is 
necessary. 

Although men in various occupations often acquire a 
considerable degree of culture outside their trade, the 
highest results of culture can scarcely ever be attained by 
men whose time is taken up in earning a fortune. Every 
man has but a limited flow of mental energy per day ; 
and if this is used up in an industrial leadership, he 
cannot do much more in the intellectual sphere than 
simply ascertain what has been done by others. Now, 
although we have a certain respect, and the respect is just, 
for those who know what others have accomplished, it is 
clear that if no one did more than this, if no one made 
any fresh discoveries, the world would make no progress 
whatever; and in fact, if nobody ever had been dedicated 
to intellectual pursuits in preceding ages, the men who 
only learn what others have done, would in these days 
have had nothing to learn. Past history proves the im- 
mensity of the debt which the world owes to men who gave 
their whole time and attention to intellectual pursuits ; 
and if the existences of these men could be eliminated 
from the past of the human race, its present would be very 
different from what it is. A list has been published of 
men who have done much good work in the intervals of 
business, but still the fact remains that the great intel- 
lectual pioneers were absorbed and devoted men, scorn- 
ing wealth so far as it affected themselves, and ready to 
endure everything for knowledge beyond the knowledge 
of their times. Instances of such enthusiasm abound, 
an enthusiasm fully justified by the value of the results 
whichjt has achieved. When Alexander Humboldt sold 
his inheritance to have the means for his great journey 
in South America, and calmly dedicated the whole of a 



TRADES AND PROFESSION'S 



419 



long life, and the strength of a robust constitution, to the 
advancement of natural knowledge, he acted foolishly 
indeed, if years, and strength, and fortune are given to us 
only to be well invested in view of money returns ; but 
the world has profited by his decision. Faraday gave up 
the whole of his time to discovery when he might have 
earned a large fortune by the judicious investment of 
his extraordinary skill in chemistry. Livingstone has 
sacrificed everything to the pursuit of his great work in 
Africa. Lives such as these — and many resemble them 
in useful devotion of which we hear much less — are 
clearly not compatible with much money-getting. A 
decent existence, free from debt, is all that such men 
ought to be held answerable for. 

I have taken two or three leading instances, but there 
is quite a large class of intellectual people who cannot 
in the nature of things serve society effectively in their 
own way without being quite outside of the industrial 
life. There is a real incompatibility between some pur- 
suits and others. I suspect that you would have been a 
good general, for you are a born leader and commander 
of men ; but it would have been difficult to unite a 
regular military career with strict personal attention to 
your factories. We often find the same difficulty in our 
intellectual pursuits. We are not always quite so un- 
practical as you think we are ; but the difficulty is how 
to find the time, and how to arrange it so as not to miss 
two or three distinct classes of opportunities. We are 
not all of us exactly imbeciles in money matters, though 
the pecuniary results of our labours seem no doubt pitiful 
enough. There is a tradition that a Greek philosopher, 
who was suspected by the practical men of his day of 
incapacity for affairs, devoted a year to prove the con- 

£ £ 3 



PART XL 

LETTER 
IV. 



Faraday. 



Livingstone. 



Incompati' 

bility 
between 
pursuits. 



Tradition 
of a Greek 
philosopher. 



420 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 

IV. 



Separation 

of the 
intellectual 

and 
industrial 
functions 



Culture and 
its price- 



Jealousy 

between the 

industrial 

and the 

intellectual 

classes. 



trary, and traded so judiciously that he amassed thereby 
great riches. It may be doubtful whether he could do it 
in one year, but many a fine intellectual capacity has 
overshadowed a fine practical capacity in the same head 
by the withdrawal of time and effort. 

It is because the energies of one man are so limited, 
and there is so little time in a single human life, that the 
intellectual and industrial functions must, in their highest 
development, be separated. No one man could unite in 
his own person your life and Humboldt's, though it is 
possible that he might have the natural capacity for both. 
Grant us, then, the liberty ?wt to earn very much money, 
and this being once granted, try to look upon our intel- 
lectual superiority as a simple natural fact, just as we look 
upon your pecuniary superiority. 

In saying in this plain way that we are intellectually 
superior to you and your class, I am guilty of no more 
pride and vanity than you when you affirm or display 
your wealth. The fact is there, in its simplicity. We 
have culture because we have paid the twenty or thirty 
years of labour which are the price of culture, just as you 
have great factories and estates which are the reward of 
your life's patient and intelligent endeavour. 

Why should there be any narrow jealousy between us ; 
why any contempt on the one side or the other ? Each 
has done his appointed work, each has caused to fructify 
the talent which the Master gave. 

Yet a certain jealousy does exist, if not between you 
and me personally, at least between our classes. The 
men who have culture without wealth are jealous of the 
power and privileges of those who possess money without 
culture; and on the other hand, the men whose time 
has been too entirely absorbed by commercial pursuits 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



421 



to leave them any margin sufficient to do justice to their 
intellectual powers, are often painfully sensitive to the 
contempt of the cultivated, and strongly disposed, from 
jealousy, to undervalue culture itself. Both are wrong so 
far as they indulge any unworthy and unreasonable feel- 
ing of this kind. The existence of the two classes is 
necessary to an advanced civilization. The science of 
accumulating and administrating material wealth, of 
which you yourself are a great practical master, is the 
foundation of the material prosperity of nations, and it is 
only when this prosperity is fully assured to great num- 
bers that the arts and sciences can develop themselves in 
perfect liberty and with the tranquil assurance of their 
own permanence. The advancement of material well- 
being in modern states tends so directly to the advance- 
ment of intellectual pursuits, even when the makers of 
fortunes are themselves indifferent to this result, that it 
ought always to be a matter of congratulation for the 
intellectual class itself, which needs the support of a great 
public with leisure to read and think. It is easy to show 
how those arts and sciences which our class delights to 
cultivate are built upon those developments of industry 
which have been brought about by the energy of yours. 
Suppose the case of a scientific chemist : the materials 
for his experiments are provided ready to his hand by 
the industrial class; the record of them is preserved on 
paper manufactured by the same industrial class; and the 
public which encourages him by its attention is usually 
found in great cities which are maintained by the labours 
of the same useful servants of humanity. It is possible, 
no doubt, in these modern times, that some purely pastoral 
or agricultural community might produce a great chemist, 
because a man of inborn scientific genius who came into 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



A rts and 

sciences 

based upon 

industry. 



Chemistry. 



422 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
IV. 



Pastoral 
and 
agricultural 
commu- 
nities. 



Value of 
chemistry. 



Effects of 

the 

abolition of 

literary 

men. 



the world in an agricultural country might in these days 
get his books and materials from industrial centres at a 
distance, but his work would still be based on the indus- 
trial life of others. No pastoral or agricultural community 
which was really isolated from industrial communities 
ever produced a chemist. And now consider how enor- 
mously important this one science of chemistry has 
proved itself even to our intellectual life ! Several other 
sciences have been either greatly strengthened or else 
altogether renewed by it, and the wonderful photographic 
processes have been for nature and the fine arts what 
printing was for literature, placing reliable and authentic 
materials for study within the reach of everyone. Litera- 
ture itself has profited by the industrial progress of the 
present age, in the increased cheapness of everything that 
is material in books. I please myself with the reflection 
that even you make paper cheaper by manufacturing so 
much cotton. 

All these are reasons why we ought not to be jealous 
of you ; and now permit me to indicate a few other 
reasons why it is unreasonable on your part to feel any 
jealousy of us. 

Suppose we were to cease working to-morrow — cease 
working, I mean, in our peculiar ways — and all of us 
become colliers and factory operatives instead, with 
nobody to supply our places. Or, since you may possibly 
be of opinion that there is enough literature and science 
in the world at the present day, suppose rather that at 
some preceding date the whole literary and scientific and 
artistic labour of the human race ; had come suddenly to 
a standstill. Mind, I do not say of Englishmen merely, 
but of the whole race, for if any intellectual work had 
been done in France or Germany, or even in Japan, you 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



423 



would have imported it like cotton and foreign cereals. 
Well, I have no hesitation in telling you that although 
there was a good deal of literature and science in England 
before the 1st of January, 1800, the present condition of 
the nation would have been a very chaotic condition if 
the intellectual class had ceased on that day to think 
and observe and to place on record its thoughts and 
observations. The life of a progressive nation cannot 
long go forward exclusively on the thinking of the past : 
its thoughtful men must not be all dead men, but living 
men who accompany it on its course. It is they who 
make clear the lessons of experience ; it is they who 
discover the reliable general laws upon which all safe 
action must be founded in the future ; it is they who give 
decision to human action in every direction by constantly 
registering, in language of comprehensive accuracy, both 
its successes and its failures. It is their great and arduous 
labour which makes knowledge accessible to men of 
action at the cost of little effort and the smallest possible 
expendilure of time. The intellectual class grows in 
numbers and in influence along with the numbers and 
influence of the materially productive population of the 
State. And not only are the natural philosophers, the 
writers of contemporary and past history, the discoverers 
in science, necessary in the strictest sense to the life of 
such a community as the modern English community, 
but even the poets, the novelists, the artists are neces- 
sary to the perfection of its life. Without them and 
their work the national mind would be as incomplete as 
would be the natural universe without beauty. But this, 
perhaps, you will perceive less clearly, or be less willing 
to admit. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
IV. 

Services 

continually 

rendered by 

literary 

men. 



Necessity 

for men of 

culture- 



424 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 



A bsurd old 
prejudices 

against 
commerce- 



Stigma 
cast on the 
majority of 
occupations. 



LETTER V. 

TO A YOUNG ETONIAN WHO THOUGHT OF BECOMING A COTTON- 
SPINNER. 

Absurd old prejudices against commerce — Stigma attached to the 
great majority of occupations — Traditions of feudalism — Distinc- 
tions between one trade and another — A real instance of an 
Etonian who had gone into the cotton-trade — Observations on 
this case — The trade a fine field for energy — A poor one for intel- 
lectual culture — It develops practical ability — Culture not possible 
without leisure — The founders of commercial fortunes. 

It is agreeable to see various indications that the 
absurd old prejudices against commerce are certainly 
declining. There still remains quite enough contempt 
for trade in the professional classes and the aristocracy, 
to give us frequent opportunities for studying it as a 
relic of former superstition, unhappily not yet rare enough 
to be quite a curiosity ; but as time passes and people 
become more rational, it will retreat to out-of-the-way 
corners of old country mansions and rural parsonages, at 
a safe distance from the light-giving centres of industry. 
It is a surprising fact, and one which proves the almost 
pathetic spirit of deference and submission to superiors 
which characterizes the English people, that out of the 
hundreds of occupations which are followed by the busy 
classes of this country, only three are entirely free from 
some degrading stigma, so that they may be followed by 
a high-born youth without any sacrifice of caste. The 
wonder is that the great active majority of the nation, the 
men who by their industry and intelligence have made 
England what she is, should ever have been willing to 
submit to so insolent a rule as this rule of caste, which, 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



425 



instead of honouring industry, honoured idleness, and 
attached a stigma to the most useful and important 
trades. The landowner, the soldier, the priest, these 
three were pure from every stain of degradation, and 
only these three were quite absolutely and ethereally 
pure. Next to them came the lawyer and the physi- 
cian, on whom there rested some traces of the lower 
earth ; so that although the youthful baron would fight 
or preach, he would neither plead nor heal. And after 
these came the lower professions and the innumerable 
trades, all marked with stigmas of deeper and deeper 
degradation. 

From the intellectual point of view these prejudices 
indicate a state of society in which public opinion has 
not emerged from barbarism. It understands the strength 
of the feudal chief having land, with serfs or voters on 
the land ; it knows the uses of the sword, and it dreads 
the menaces of the priesthood. Beyond this it knows 
little, and despises what it does not understand. It is 
ignorant of science, and industry, and art; it despises 
them as servile occupations beneath its conception of 
the gentleman. This is the tradition of countries which 
retain the impressions of feudalism ; but notwithstanding 
all our philosophy, it is difficult for us to avoid some 
feeling of astonishment when we reflect that the public 
opinion of England — a country that owes so much of 
her greatness and nearly all her wealth to commercial 
enterprise — should be contemptuous towards commerce. 

I may notice, in passing, a very curious form of this 
narrowness. Trade is despised, but distinctions are 
established between one trade and another. A man 
who sells wine is considered more of a gentleman than 
a man who sells figs and raisins ; and I believe you will 



PART XI. 

LETTER 



The rule of 
caste. 



Barbarism. 



Vestiges of 

the feudal 

state- 



Distinctions 
between 
trades. 



426 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
V. 



The 
cotton trade- 



find, if you observe people carefully, that a woollen 
manufacturer is thought to be a shade less vulgar than a 
cotton manufacturer. These distinctions are seldom based 
on reason, for the work of commerce is generally very 
much the same sort of work, mentally, whatever may be 
the materials it deals in. You may be heartily congra- 
tulated on the strength of mind, firmness of resolution, 
and superiority to prejudice, which have led you to 
choose the business of a cotton-spinner. It is an excel- 
lent business, and, in itself, every whit as honourable 
as dealing in corn and cattle, which our nobles do habi- 
tually without reproach. But now that I have disclaimed 
any participation in the stupid narrowness which despises 
trade in general, and the cotton-trade in particular, let 
me add a few words upon the effects of the cotton 
business on the mind. 

There appeared in one of the newspapers a little time 
since a most interesting and evidently genuine letter from 
an Etonian, who had actually entered business in a cotton 
factory, and devoted himself to it so as to earn the confi- 
dence of his employers and a salary of 400/. a year as 
manager. He had waited some time uselessly for a 
diplomatic appointment which did not arrive, and so, 
rather than lose the best years of early manhood, as 
a more indolent fellow would have done very willingly, 
in pure idleness, he took the resolution of entering busi- 
cotton- ness, and carried out his determination with admirable 
persistence. At first nobody would believe that the 
" swell " could be serious ; people thought that his idea 
of manufacturing was a mere freak, and expected him to 
abandon it when he had to tace the tedium of the daily 
work ; but the swell was serious — went to the mill at six 
in the morning and stayed there till six at night, from 



Letter from 
an Etotnan- 



Hew he 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



427 



Monday till Saturday inclusive. After a year of this, his 
new companions believed in him. 

Now, all this is very admirable indeed as a manifes- 
tation of energy, and that truest independence which 
looks to fortune as the reward of its own manly effort, 
but it maybe permitted to me to make a few observations 
on this young gentleman's resolve. What he did seems 
to me rather the act of an energetic nature seeking an 
outlet for energy, than of an intellectual nature seeking 
pasture and exercise for the intellect. I am far indeed 
from desiring, by this comparison, to cast any disparaging 
light on the young gentleman's natural endowments, 
which appear to have been valuable in their order and 
robust in their degree, nor do I question the wisdom of 
his choice ; all I mean to imply is, that although he had 
chosen a fine large field for simple energy, it was a poor 
and barren field for the intellect to pasture in. Consider 
for one moment the difference in this respect between 
the career which he had abandoned and the trade he 
had embraced. As an attache he would have lived in 
capital cities, have had the best opportunities for perfect- 
ing himself in modern languages, and for meeting the 
most varied and the most interesting society. In every 
day there would have been precious hours of leisure, to 
be employed in the increase of his culture. If an in- 
tellectual man, having to choose between diplomacy and 
cotton-spinning, preferred cotton-spinning, it would be 
from the desire for wealth, or from the love of an English 
home. The life of a cotton manufacturer, who personally 
attends to his business with that close supervision which 
has generally conducted to success, leaves scarcely any 
margin for intellectual pleasure or spare energy for in- 
tellectual work. After ten hours in the mill, it is difficult 



PART XI. 

LETTER 
V. 



The act of 

an energetic 

nature. 



Life of an 
attacJte- 



Life of a 

cotton- 
in n/nfac- 
titrer. 



4 2* 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XI. 

LETTER 



The leaders 
of industry. 



Intelligence 

and 

intellect. 



Effects of 
trade upon 
the mind. 



to sit down and study ; and even if there were energy 
enough, the mind would not readily cast off the burden 
of great practical anxieties and responsibilities so as to 
attune itself to disinterested thinking. The leaders of 
industry often display mental power of as high an order 
as that which is employed in the government of great 
empires ; they show the highest administrative ability, 
they have to deal continually with financial questions 
which on their smaller scale require as much forethought 
and acumen as those that concern the exchequer ; but 
the ability they need is always strictly practical, and 
there is the widest difference between the practical and 
the intellectual minds. A constant and close pressure 
of practical considerations develops the sort of power 
which deals effectually with the present and its needs 
but atrophies the higher mind. The two minds which 
we call intelligence and intellect resemble the feet and 
wings of birds. Eagles and swallows walk badly or not 
at all, but they have a marvellous strength of flight ; 
ostriches are great pedestrians, but they know nothing of 
the regions of the air. The best that can be hoped for 
men immersed in the details of business is that they may 
be able, like partridges and pheasants, to take a short 
flight on an emergency, and rise, if only for a few 
minutes, above the level of the stubble and the copse. 

Without, therefore, desiring to imply any prejudiced 
contempt for trade, I do desire to urge the consideration 
of its inevitable effects upon the mind. For men of great 
practical intelligence and abundant energy, trade is all- 
sufficing, but it could never entirely satisfy an intellectual 
nature. And although there is drudgery in every pursuit, 
for even literature and painting are full of it, still there 
are certain kinds of drudsrerv which intellectual natures 



TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. 



429 



find to be harder to endure than others. The drudgery 
which they bear least easily is an incessant attention to 
duties which have no intellectual interest, and yet which 
cannot be properly performed mechanically so as to 
leave the mind at liberty for its own speculations. Deep 
thinkers are notoriously absent, for thought requires ab- 
raction from what surrounds us, and it is hard for them 
to be denied the liberty of dreaming. An intellectual 
person might be happy as a stone-breaker on the road- 
side, because the work would leave his mind at liberty ; 
but he would certainly be miserable as an engine-driver 
at a coal-pit shaft, where the abstraction of an instant 
would imperil the lives of others. 

In a recent address delivered by Mr. Gladstone at 
Liverpool, he acknowledged the neglect of culture which 
is one of the shortcomings of our trading community, 
and held out the hope (perhaps in some degree illusory) 
that the same persons might become eminent in commerce 
and in learning. No doubt there have been instances of 
this ; and when a " concern " has been firmly established 
by the energy of a predecessor, the heir to it may be satis- 
fied with a royal sort of supervision, leaving the drudgery 
of detail to his managers, and so secure for himself that 
sufficient leisure without which high culture is not pos- 
sible. But the founders of great commercial fortunes 
have, I believe, in every instance thrown their whole 
energy into their trade, making wealth their aim, and 
leaving culture to be added in another generation. The 
founders of commercial families are in this country 
usually men of great mother-wit and plenty of determi- 
nation — but illiterate. 



part xr. 

LETTER 



A bstraction. 



Neglect of 
culture. 



Founders of 
fortunes. 



PART XII. 



S URR O UNDINGS. 



LETTER I. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 



Unsettled 

English 

people. 



TO A FRIEND WHO OFTEN CHANGED HIS PLACE OF RESIDENCE 

An unsettled class of English people — Effect of localities on the 
mind — Reaction against surroundings — Landscape-painting a 
consequence of it — Crushing effect of too much natural magni- 
ficence — The mind takes colour from its surroundings — Selection 
of a place of residence — Charles Dickens — Heinrich Heine — 
Dr. Arnold at Rugby — His house in the lake district— Tycho 
Brahe — His establishment on the island of Hween — The young 
Humboldts in the Castle of Tegel — Alexander Humboldt's 
appreciation of Paris — Dr. Johnson — Mr. Buckle— Cowper — 
Galileo. 

I find that there is a whole class of English subjects 
(you belong to that class) of whom it is utterly impossible 
to predict where they will be living in five years. Indeed, 
as you are the worst of correspondents, I only learned 
your present address, by sheer accident, from a perfect 
stranger, and he told me, of course, that you had plans 
for going somewhere else, but where that might be he 
knew not. The civilized English nomad is usually, like 



SURR UNDINGS. 



431 



yourself, a person of independent means, rich enough to 
bear the expenses of frequent removals, but without the 
cares of property. His money is safely invested in the 
funds, or in railways ; and so, wherever the postman can 
bring his dividends, he can live in freedom from material 
cares. When his wife is as unsettled as himself, the pair 
seem to live in a balloon, or in a sort of Noah's ark, which 
goes whither the wind lists, and takes ground in the most 
unexpected places. 

Have you ever studied the effect of localities on the 
mind — on your own mind ? That which we are is due in 
great part to the accident of our surroundings, which act 
upon us in one of two quite opposite ways. Either we 
feel in harmony with them, in which case they produce a 
positive effect upon us, or else we are out of harmony, 
and then they drive us into the strangest reactions. A 
great ugly English town, like Manchester, for instance, 
makes some men such thorough townsmen that they 
cannot live without smoky chimneys ; or it fills the souls 
of others with such a passionate longing for beautiful 
scenery and rustic retirement, that they find it absolutely 
necessary to bury themselves from time to time in the 
recesses of picturesque mountains. The development of 
modern landscape-painting has not been due to habits of 
rural existence, but to the growth of very big and hideous 
modern cities, which made men long for shady forests, 
and pure streams, and magnificent spectacles of sunset, 
and dawn, and moonlight. It is by this time a trite 
observation that people who have always lived in 
beautiful scenery do not, and cannot, appreciate it ; 
that too much natural magnificence positively crushes 
the activity of the intellec , and that its best effect is 
simply that of refreshment for people who have not 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
I. 



Ejfectof 

localities 

upon the 

mind. 



Manchester. 



Landscape- 
painting. 



Natural 
jnagni- 
Jice7ice. 



43'2 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII 

LETTER 
I. 



Every 
locality like 
a dyer's vat. 



Selection of 
a place of 
residence. 



Dickens. 

Browning' 

Rttskin. 



access to it every day. It happens too, in a converse 
way, that rustics and mountaineers have the strongest 
appreciation of the advantages of great cities, and thrive 
in them often more happily than citizens who are born 
in the brick streets. Those who have great facilities for 
changing their place of residence ought always to bear in 
mind that every locality is like a dyer's vat, and that the 
residents take its colour, or some other colour, from it 
just as the clothes do that the dyer steeps in stain. If 
you look back upon your past life, you will assuredly 
admit that every place has coloured your mental habits ; 
and that although other tints from other places have 
supervened, so that it may be difficult to say precisely 
what remains of the place you lived in many years ago, 
still something does remain, like the effect of the first 
painting on a picture, which tells on the whole work 
permanently, though it may have been covered over 
and over again by what painters call scumblings and 
glazings. 

The selection of a place of residence, even though we 
only intend to pass a few short years in it, is from the 
intellectual point of view a matter so important that one 
can hardly exaggerate its consequences. We see this 
quite plainly in the case of authors, whose minds are 
more visible to us than the minds of other men, and 
therefore more easily and conveniently studied. We 
need no biographer to inform us that Dickens was a 
Londoner, that Browning had lived in Italy, that Ruskin 
had passed many seasons in Switzerland and Venice. 
Suppose for one moment that these three authors had 
been born in Ireland, and had never quitted it, is it not 
certain that their production would have been different ? 
Let us carry our supposition farther still, and conceive, if 



SUA' A' O VNDINGS. 



433 



we can, the difference to their literary performance if 
they had been born, not in Ireland, but in Iceland, and 
lived there all their lives ! Is it not highly probable 
that in this case their production would have been so 
starved and impoverished from insufficiency of material 
and of suggestion, that they would have uttered nothing 
but some simple expression of sentiment and imagina- 
tion, some homely song or tale ? All sights and sounds 
have their influence on our temper and on our thoughts, 
and our inmost being is not the same in one place as 
in another. We are like blank paper that takes a tint 
by reflection from what is nearest, and changes it as its 
surroundings change. In a dull grey room, how grey 
and dull it looks ! but it will be bathed in rose or amber 
if the hangings are crimson or yellow. There are 
natures that go to the streams of life in great cities 
as the hart goes to the water-brooks \ there are other 
natures that need the solitude of primaeval forests and 
the silence of the Alps. The most popular of English 
novelists sometimes went to write in the tranquillity of 
beautiful scenery, taking his manuscript to the shore of 
some azure lake in Switzerland, in sight of the eternal snow; 
but all that beauty and peace, all that sweetness of pure 
air and colour, were not seductive enough to overcome for 
many days the deep longing for the London streets. His 
genius needed the streets, as a bee needs the summer 
flowers, and languished when long separated from them. 
Others have needed the wild heather, or the murmur of 
the ocean, or the sound of autumn winds that strip great 
forest-trees. Who does not deeply pity poor Heine in 
his last sad years, when he lay fixed on his couch of 
pain in that narrow Parisian lodging, and compared it to 
the sounding grave of Merlin the enchanter, "which is 

F F 



PART XII 

LETTER 
I. 



Influence of 
near thitigs. 



Need for 
streets. 



Need for 
woods. 



434 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII 

LETTER 
I. 



Heine's 

longing for 

woods. 



Dr. Arnold. 



Effect on 
him of 

Warwick- 
shire 
scenery. 



situated in the wood of Brozeliande, in Brittany, under 
lofty oaks whose tops taper, like emerald flames, towards 
heaven. O brother Merlin," he exclaims, and with 
what touching pathos ! " brother Merlin, I envy thee 
those trees, with their fresh breezes, for never a green 
leaf rustles about this mattress-grave of mine in Paris, 
where from morning till night I hear nothing but the 
rattle of wheels, the clatter of hammers, street-brawls, 
and the jingling of pianofortes ! " 

In the biography of Dr. Arnold, his longing for natural 
beauty recurs as one of the peculiarities of his constitu- 
tion. He did not need very grand scenery, though he 
enjoyed it deeply, but some wild natural loveliness 
was such a necessity for him that he pined for it un- 
happily in its absence. Rugby could offer him scarcely 
anything of this. " We have no hills," he lamented, " no 
plains — not a single wood, and but one single copse ; no 
heath, no down, no rock, no river, no clear stream — 
scarcely any flowers, for the lias is particularly poor in 
them — nothing but one endless monotony of enclosed 
fields and hedgerow trees. This is to me a daily priva- 
tion ; it robs me of what is naturally my anti-attrition ; 
and as I grow older I begin to feel it. . . . The positive 
dulness of the country about Rugby makes it to me a 
mere working-place : I cannot expatiate there even in 
my walks." 

"The monotonous character of the midland scenery 
of Warwickshire," says Dr. Arnold's biographer, " was to 
him, with his strong love of natural beauty and variety, 
absolutely repulsive ; there was something almost touch- 
ing in the eagerness with which, amidst that 'end- 
less succession of fields and hedgerows,' he would make 
the most of any features of a higher order ; in . the 



SURROUNDINGS. 



435 



pleasure with which he would cherish the few places 
where the current of the Avon was perceptible, or 
where a glimpse of the horizon could be discerned ; 
in the humorous despair with which he would gaze on 
the dull expanse of fields eastward from Rugby. It is 
no wonder we do not like looking that way, when one 
considers that there is nothing fine between us and the 
Ural mountains. Conceive what you look over, for you 
just miss Sweden, and look over Holland, the north of 
Germany, and the centre of Russia." l 

This dreadful midland monotony impelled Dr. Arnold 
to seek refreshment and compensation in a holiday home 
in the Lake district, and there he found all that his eyes 
longed for, streams, hills, woods, and wild-flowers. Nor 
had his belief in the value of these sweet natural 
surroundings been illusory ; such instincts are not given 
for our betrayal, and the soul of a wise man knows its 
own needs, both before they are supplied, and^ after. 
Westmoreland gave him all he had hoped from it, and 
more. "Body and mind," he wrote, "alike seem to j 
repose greedily in delicious quiet, without dulness, which 
we enjoy in Westmoreland." And again: "At Allan 
Bank, in the summer, I worked on the Roman history, 
and hope to do so again in the winter. It is very inspiring 
to write with such a view before one's eyes as that from 
our drawing-room at Allan Bank, where the trees of the 
shrubbery gradually run up into the trees of the cliff, 
and the mountain-side, with its infinite variety of rocky 
peaks and points upon which the cattle expatiate, rises 
over the tops of the trees." 

Of all happily-situated mental labourers who have 

> How purely this is the misery of a man of culture ! A. peasant 
would not have gone so far. 

F F 2 



PART. XII. 

LETTER 



Dr. A mold 
at Rugby. 



Effect of 

Westntore* 

land on 

A 7-nold. 



43^ 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 






PART XII 

LETTER 



Tycho 
Brake on 
kis island. 



A dvantages 

of the 

situation. 



worked since the days of Horace, surely Tycho Brahe 
was the happiest and most to be envied. King Frederick 
of Denmark gave him a delightful island for his habita- 
tion, large enough for him not to feel imprisoned (the 
circumference being about five miles), yet little enough 
for him to feel as snugly at home there as Mr. Waterton 
in his high-walled park. The land was fertile and rich in 
game, so that the scientific Robinson Crusoe lived in 
material abundance; and as he was only about seven 
miles from Copenhagen, he could procure everything 
necessary to his convenience. He built a great house on 
the elevated land in the midst of the isle, about three- 
quarters of a mile from the sea, a palace of art and 
science, with statues and paintings and all the apparatus 
which the ingenuity of that age could contrive for the 
advancement of astronomical pursuits. Uniting the case 
of a rich nobleman's existence with every aid to science, 
including special erections for his instruments, and a 
printing establishment that worked under his own imme- 
diate direction, he lived far enough from the capital 
to enjoy the most perfect tranquillity, yet near enough 
to escape the consequences of too absolute isolation. 
Aided in all he undertook by a staff of assistants that 
he himself had trained, supported in his labour by the 
encouragement of his sovereign, and especially by his 
own unflagging interest in scientific investigation, he led 
in that peaceful island the ideal intellectual life. Of 
that mansion where he laboured, of the observatory 
where he watched the celestial phenomena, surrounded 
but not distuibed by the waves of a shallow sea, there 
remains at this day literally not one stone upon another ; 
but many a less fortunate labourer in the same field, 
harassed by poverty, distracted by noise and interrup* 



SURROUNDINGS. 



437 



tion, has remembered with pardonable envy the splendid 
peace of Uranienborg. 

It was one of the many fortunate circumstances in the 
position of the two Humboldts that they passed their 
youth in the quiet old castle of Tegel, separated from 
Berlin by a pine-wood, and surrounded by walks and 
gardens. They too, like Tycho Brahe, enjoyed that happy 
combination of tranquillity with the neighbourhood of a 
capital city which is so peculiarly favourable to culture. 
In later life, when Alexander Humboldt had collected 
those immense masses of material which were the result 
of his travels in South America, he warmly appreciated 
the unequalled advantages of Paris. He knew how to 
extract from the solitudes of primaeval nature what he 
wanted for the enrichment of his mind ; but he knew 
also how to avail himself of all the assistance and 
opportunities which are only to be had in great capitals. 
He was not attracted to town-life, like Dr. Johnson and 
Mr. Buckle, to the exclusion of wild nature ; but neither, 
on the other hand, had he that horror of towns which 
was a morbid defect in Cowper, and which condemns 
those who suffer from it to rusticity. Even Galileo, who 
thought the country especially favourable to speculative 
intellects, and the walls of cities an imprisonment for 
them, declared that the best years of his life were those 
he had spent in Padua. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
I. 



The 

brothers 
Httmboldt 
at Tegel. 



A lexa?ider 
Humboldt 
at Paris. 



Dr. 

JoJuison. 
Mr. Buckle. 



Cowper. 
Galileo. 



438 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 



A rchimedes 
at Syracuse. 



Geoffroy 
St. Hilaire- 



LETTER II. 

TO A FRIEND WHO MAINTAINED THAT SURROUNDINGS WERE A 
MATTER OF INDIFFERENCE TO A THOROUGHLY OCCUPIED 
MIND. 

Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse — Geoffroy St. Hilaire in the 
besieged city of Alexandria — Goethe at the bombardment of 
Verdun — Lullo, the Oriental missionary — Giordano Bruno — 
Unacknowledged effect of surroundings — Effect of Frankfort on 
Goethe — Great capitals — Goethe — His garden-house — What he 
said about Beranger and Paris — Fortunate surroundings of 
Titian. 

There are so many well-known instances of men who 
have been able to continue their intellectual labours 
under the most unfavourable conditions, that your argu- 
ment might be powerfully supported by an appeal to 
actual experience. There is Archimedes, of course, to 
begin with, who certainly seems to have abstracted him 
self sufficiently from the tumult of a great siege to forget 
it altogether when occupied with his mathematical pro- 
blems. The prevalent stories of his death, though not 
identical, point evidently to a habit of abstraction which 
had been remarked as a peculiarity by those about 
him, and it is probable enough that a great inventor in 
engineering would follow his usual speculations undei 
circumstances which, though dangerous, had lasted long 
enough to become habitual. Even modern warfare, 
which from the use of gunpowder is so much noisier 
than that which raged at Syracuse, does not hinder men 
from thinking and writing when they are used to it 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire never worked more steadily and 
regularly in his whole life than he did in the midst 



SURROUNDINGS. 



439 



of the besieged city of Alexandria. " Knowledge is 
so sweet," he said long afterwards, in speaking of this 
experience, " that it never entered my thoughts how a 
bombshell might in an instant have cast into the abyss 
both me and my documents." By good luck two 
electric fish had been caught and given to him just 
then, so he immediately began to make experiments, as 
if he had been in his own cabinet in Paris, and for 
three weeks he thought of nothing else, utterly forgetting 
the fierce warfare that filled the air with thunder and 
flame, and the streets with victims. He had sixty-four 
hypotheses to amuse him, and it was necessary to review 
his whole scientific acquirement with reference to each 
of these as he considered them one by one. It may be 
doubted, however, whether he was more in danger from 
the bombardment or from the intensity of his own 
mental concentration. He grew thin and haggard, slept 
one hour in the twenty-four, and lived in a perilous con 
dition of nervous strain and excitement. Goethe at the 
bombardment of Verdun, letting his mind take its own 
course, found that it did not occupy itself with tragedies, 
or with anything suggested by what was passing in the 
conflict around him, but by scientific considerations 
about the phenomena of colours. He noticed, in a 
passing observation, the bad effect of war upon the mind, 
how it makes people destructive one day and creative 
the next, how it accustoms them to phrases intended to 
excite hope in desperate circumstances, thus producing 
a peculiar sort of hypocrisy different from the priestly 
and courtly kind. This is the extent of his interest in 
the war; but when he finds some soldiers fishing he is 
attracted to the spot and profoundly occupied — not with 
the soldiers, but with the optical phenomena on the 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
II. 

Geoffroy 

St. Hilaire 

at the 

siege of 

A lexa.71d.ria. 



Goethe at 
the bom- 
bardment of 
Verdun. 



440 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII 

LETTER 



Lullo. 



Giordano 
Bruno. 



Geoffroy 
St. Hilaire : 

effects of 

the siege on 

him. 



water. He was never very much moved by external 
events, nor did he take that intense interest in the politics 
of the day which we often find in people less studious 
of literature and science. Raimond Lullo, the Oriental 
missionary, continued to write many volumes in the 
midst of the most continual difficulties and dangers, 
preserving as much mental energy and clearness as if 
he had been safe and tranquil in a library. Giordano 
Bruno worked constantly also in the midst of political 
troubles and religious persecutions, and his biographer 
tells us that " il desiderio vivissimo della scienza aveva 
ben piu efficacia sull' animo del Bruno, che non gli 
avvenimenti esterni." 

These examples which have just occurred to me, and 
many others that it would be easy to collect, may be 
taken to prove at least so much as this, that it is possible 
to be absorbed in private studies when surrounded by 
the most disturbing influences ; but even in these cases 
it would be a mistake to conclude that the surroundings 
had no effect whatever. There can be no doubt that 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire was intensely excited by the siege 
of Alexandria, though he may not have attributed his 
excitement to that cause. His mind was -occupied with 
the electrical fishes, but his nervous system was wrought 
upon by the siege, and kept in that state of tension which 
at the same time enabled him to get through a gigantic 
piece of intellectual labour and made him incapable of 
rest. Had this condition been prolonged it must have 
terminated either in exhaustion or in madness. Men 
have often engaged in literature or science to escape 
the pressure of anxiety, which strenuous mental labour 
permits us, at least temporarily, to forget ; but the cir- 
cumstances which surround us have invariably an in- 



SURROUNDINGS. 



441 



fluence of some kind upon our thinking, though the 
connection may not be obvious. Even in the case of 
Goethe, who could study optics on a battle-field, his 
English biographer recognizes the effect of the Frank- 
fort life which surrounded the great author in his 
childhood. "The old Frankfort city, with its busy 
crowds, its fairs, its mixed population, and its many 
sources of excitement, offered great temptations and 
great pasture to so desultory a genius. This is perhaps 
a case wherein circumstances may be seen influencing 
the direction of character. ... A large continuity of 
thought and effort was perhaps radically uncongenial 
to such a temperament; yet one cannot help speculating 
whether under other circumstances he might not have 
achieved it. Had he been reared in a quiet little old 
German town, where he would have daily seen the same 
faces in the silent streets, and come in contact with the 
same characters, his culture might have been less various, 
but it might perhaps have been deeper. Had he been 
reared in the country, with only the changing seasons 
and the sweet serenities of nature to occupy his atten- 
tion when released from study, he would certainly have 
been a different poet. The long summer afternoons 
spent in lonely rambles, the -deepening twilights filled 
with shadowy visions, the slow uniformity of his external 
life necessarily throwing him more and more upon the 
subtler diversities of inward experience, would inevitably 
have influenced his genius in quite different directions, 
would have animated his works with a very different 
spirit." 

We are sometimes told that life in a great capital is 
essential to the development of genius, but Frankfort 
was the largest town Goethe ever lived in, and he never 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
II. 



Frankfort : 
effects of 
the city on 
Goethe in 
his child- 
hood. 



Small old 
towns. 



The 

country. 



442 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
II. 

Weimar. 



Snrrotind- 
ings of 
Goethe. 



Beranger. 



We are 
nothing of 
ourselves. 



Titian. 



visited either Paris or London. Much of the sanity of 
his genius may have been due to his residence in so 
tranquil a place as Weimar, where he could shut himself 
up in his " garden-house " and lock all the gates of the 
bridge over the Ilm. "The solitude," says Mr. Lewes, 
"is absolute, broken only by the occasional sound of 
the church clock, the music from the barracks, and the 
screaming of the peacocks spreading their superb beauty 
in the park." Few men of genius have been happier in 
their surroundings than Goethe. He had tranquillity, 
and yet was not deprived of intellectual intercourse; the 
scenery within excursion-distance from his home was 
interesting and even inspiring, yet not so splendid as 
to be overwhelming. We know from his conversations 
that he was quite aware of the value of those little 
centres of culture to Germany, and yet in one place he 
speaks of Beranger in the tone which seems to imply 
an appreciation of the larger life of Paris. " Fancy," he 
says, " this same Beranger away from Paris, and the 
influence and opportunities of a world-city, born as the 
son of a poor tailor, at Jena or Weimar; let him run 
his wretched career in either of the two small cities, and 
see what fruit would have grown on such a soil and in 
such an atmosphere." 

We cannot too frequently be reminded that we are 
nothing of ourselves, and by ourselves, and are only 
something by the place we hold in the intellectual chain 
of humanity by which electricity is conveyed to us and 
through us — to be increased in the transmission if we 
have great natural power and are favourably situated, but 
not otherwise. A child is born to the Vecelli family at 
Cadore, and when it is nine years old is taken to Venice 
and placed under the tuition of Sebastian Zuccato 



SURROUNDINGS. 



443 



Afterwards he goes to Bellini's school, and there gets 
acquainted with another student, one year his junior, 
whose name is Barbarelli. They live together and work 
together in Venice; then young Barbarelli (known to 
posterity as Giorgione), after putting on certain spaces of 
wall and squares of canvas such colour as the world had 
never before seen, dies in his early manhood and leaves 
Vecellio, whom we call Titian, to work on there in Venice 
till the plague stays his hand in his hundredth year. The 
genius came into the world, but all the possibilities of 
his development depended upon the place and the time. 
He came exactly in the right place and precisely at the 
right time. To be born not far from Venice in the days 
of Bellini, to be taken there at nine years old, to have 
Giorgione for one's comrade, all this was as fortunate for 
an artistic career as the circumstances of Alexander of 
Macedon were for a career of conquest. 



LETTER III. 

TO AN ARTIST WHO WAS FITTING UP A MAGNIFICENT NEW 

STUDIO. 

Pleasure of planning a studio — Opinions of an outsider — Saint 
Bernard — Father Ravignan — Goethe's study and bed-room — 
Gustave Dore's studio — Leslie's painting-room — Turner's opinion 
— Habits of Scott and Dickens— Extremes good — Vulgar medio- 
crity not so good — Value of beautiful views to literary men — 
Montaigne — Views from the author's windows. 

Nothing in the life of an artist is more agreeable than 
the building and furnishing of the studio in which he 
hopes to produce his most mature and perfect work. It 
is so pleasant to labour when we are surrounded by 
beauty and convenience, that painters find a large and 



PART xir. 

LETTER 



Fortimcite 

surrouni- 

i'i° r s of 

Titian. 



LETTER 

III. 



444 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 

III. 



The love of 
fine sUidios- 



Occupied 
minds. 



The private 

study 
of Goethe. 



handsome studio to be an addition to the happiness of 
their lives, and they usually dream of it, and plan it, 
several years before the dream is realized. 

Only a few days ago I was talking on this very sub- 
ject with an intellectual friend who is not an artist, and 
who maintained that the love of fine studios is in great 
part a mere illusion. He admitted the necessity for size, 
and for a proper kind of light, but laughed at carved oak, 
and tapestry, and armour, and the knicknacks that artists 
encumber themselves with. He would have it that a 
mind thoroughly occupied with its own business knew 
nothing whatever of the objects that surrounded it, and 
he cited two examples — Saint Bernard, who travelled all 
day by the shore of Lake Leman without seeing it, and 
the ph'e Ravignan, who worked in a bare little room with 
a common table of blackened pine and a cheap rush- 
bottomed chair. On this I translated to him, from 
Goethe's life by Lewes, a passage which was new to 
him and delighted him as a confirmation of his theory. 
The biographer describes the poet's study as "alow- 
roofed narrow room, somewhat dark, for it is lighted 
only through two. tiny windows, and furnished with a 
simplicity quite touching to behold. In the centre 
stands a plain oval table of unpolished oak. No arm- 
chair is to be seen, no sofa, nothing which speaks of 
ease. A plain hard chair has beside it the basket in 
which he used to place his handkerchief. Against the 
wall, on the right, is a long pear-tree table, with book- 
shelves, on which stand lexicons and manuals. ... On 
the side-wall again, a bookcase with some works of poets. 
On the wall to the left is a long desk of soft w ood, at 
which he was wont to write. A sheet of paper with 
|_notes of contemporary history is fastened near the door. 



SURROUNDINGS. 



445 



The same door leads into a bed-room, if bed-room it can 
be called, which no maid-of-all-work in England would 
accept without a murmur : it is a closet with a window. 
A simple bed, an arm-chair by its side, and a tiny wash- 
ing-table with a small white basin on it, and a sponge, is 
-all the furniture. To enter this room with any feeling 
for the greatness and goodness of him who slept here, 
and who here slept his last sleep, brings tears into our 
eyes, and makes the breathing deep." 

When I had finished reading this passage, my friend 
exclaimed triumphantly, " There ! don't you see that 
it was just because Goethe had imaginative power of a 
strong and active kind that he cared nothing about what 
surrounded him when he worked ? He had statues and 
pictures to occupy his mind when it was disengaged, 
but when he wrote he preferred that bare little cell 
where nothing was to be seen that could distract his 
attention for an instant. Depend upon it, Goethe acted 
in this matter either from a deliberate and most wise 
calculation, or else from the sure instinct of genius." 

Whilst we were on this subject I thought over other 
instances, and remembered my surprise on visiting 
Gustave Dore in his painting-room in Paris. Dore has 
a Gothic exuberance of imagination, so I expected a 
painting-room something like Victor Hugo's house, rather 
barbarous, but very rich and interesting, with plenty of 
carved cabinets, and tapestry, and biblos, as they call 
picturesque curiosities in Paris. To my surprise, there 
was nothing (except canvasses and easels) but a small 
deal table, on which tubes of oil-colour were thrown in 
disorder, and two cheap chairs. Here, evidently, the 
pleasure of painting was sufficient to occupy the artist ; 
and in the room where he made his illustrations the 



PART XII 

LETTER 
III. 



Goethe's 
cell. 



G. Dove's 

painti?ig- 

roo;n. 



446 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII, 

LETTER 
III. 



Leslie's 
Painting- 
room. 

Turner. 



Scott. 



Vulgar snr- 
roundhigs. 



characteristics were simplicity and good practical arrange- 
ments for order, but there was nothing to amuse the 
imagination. Mr. Leslie used to paint in a room which 
was just like any other in the house, and had none of the 
peculiarities of a studio. Turner did not care in the 
least what sort of a room he painted in, provided it had 
a door, and a bolt on the inside. Scott could write any- 
where, even in the family sitting-room, with talk going 
forward as usual j and after he had finished Abbotsford, 
he did not write in any of its rich and noble rooms, but 
in a simple closet with book-shelves round it. Dickens 
wrote in a comfortable room, well-lighted and cheerful, and 
he liked to have funny little bronzes on his writing-table. 

The best way appears to be to surround ourselves, 
whenever it can be conveniently done, with whatever 
we know by experience to be favourable to our work. 1 
think the barest cell monk ever prayed in would be a 
good place for imaginative composition, and so too 
would be the most magnificent rooms in Chatsworth or 
Blenheim. A middling sort of place with a- Philistine 
character, vulgar upholstery, and vulgar pictures or en- 
gravings, is really dangerous, because these things often 
attract attention in the intervals of labour and occupy it 
in a mean way. An artist is always the better for having 
something that may profitably amuse and occupy his 
eye when he quits his picture, and I think it is a right 
instinct which leads artists to surround themselves with 
many picturesque and beautiful things, not too orderly 
in their arrangement, so that there may be pleasant sur- 
prises for the eye, as there are in nature. 

For literary men there is nothing so valuable as a 
window with a cheerful and beautiful prospect. It is 
good for us to have this refreshment for the eye when we 



SURROUNDINGS. 



447 



leave off working, and Montaigne did wisely to have his 
study up in a tower from which he had extensive views. 
There is a well-known objection to extensive views as 
wanting in snugness and comfort, but this objection 
scarcely applies to the especial case of literary men. 
What we want is not so much snugness as relief, re- 
freshment, suggestion, and we get these, as a general 
rule, much better from wide prospects than from limited 
ones. I have just alluded to Montaigne, — will you permit 
me to imitate that dear old philosopher in his egotism 
and describe to you the view from the room I write in, 
which cheers and amuses me continually ? But before 
describing this, let me describe another of which the 
recollection is very dear to me and as vivid as a freshly- 
painted picture. In years gone by, I had only to look up 
from my desk and see a noble loch in its inexhaustible 
loveliness, and a mountain in its majesty. It was a 
daily and hourly delight to watch the breezes play about 
the enchanted isles, on the delicate silvery surface, dim- 
ming some clear reflection, or trailing it out in length, or 
cutting sharply across it with acres of rippling blue. It 
was a frequent pleasure to see the clouds play about the 
crest of Cruachan and Ben Vorich's golden head, grey 
mists that crept upwards from the valleys till the sunshine 
suddenly caught them and made them brighter than 
the snows they shaded. And the leagues and leagues 
of heather on the lower land to the southward that 
became like the aniline dyes of deepest purple and. blue, 
when the sky was grey in the evening — all save one 
orange-streak ! Ah, those were spectacles never to be 
forgotten, splendours of light and glory, and sadness of 
deepening gloom when the eyes grew moist in the 
twilight and secretly drank their tears. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
III. 

Montaigne 's 

private 

study. 



The author's 

prospect 

in the 

Highlands. 



448 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 



PART XII. 

LETTER 
III. 



A bsence of 
human 
i?Uerest. 



Soror et 
cenmla 
Roma. 



And yet, wonderful as it was, that noble and pas- 
sionately beloved Highland scenery was wanting in one 
great element that a writer imperatively needs. In all 
that natural magnificence humanity held no place. 
Hidden behind a fir-clad promontory to the north, there 
still remained, it is true, the grey ruin of old Kilchurn, and 
far to the south-west, in another reach of the lake, the 
island-fortress of Ardhonnel. But there was not a visible 
city with spires and towers, there were only the fir-trees 
on the little islands and a few gravestones on the largest 
Beyond, were the depopulated deserts of Breadalbane. 

Here, where I write to you now, it seems as if man- 
kind were nearer, and the legends of the ages written 
out for me on the surface of the world. Under the 
shadow of Jove's hill rises before me one of the most 
ancient of European cities, soror et amula Romce. She 
bears on her walls and edifices the record of sixty gene- 
rations. Temple, and arch, and pyramid, all these bear 
witness still, and so do her ancient bulwarks, and many 
a stately tower. High above all, the cathedral spire is 
drawn dark in the morning mist, and often in the cleai 
summer evenings it comes brightly in slanting sunshine 
against the steep woods behind. Then the old city 
arrays herself in the warmest and mellowest tones, and 
glows as the shadows fall. She reigns over the whole 
width of her valley to the folds of the far blue hills. 
Even so ought our life to be surrounded by the loveli* 
ness of nature — surrounded, but not subdued. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abundance of objects, 78. 
Academical grades, 103. 
Accomplishments of a modern gentle- 
man, 80. 
Accumulation, the instinct of, 186. 
Accuracy, lack of, in women, 231. 
Acquaintances, 302. 
Active temperament, 24. 
Activity, intellectual, need of it, 347. 
Adults, their power of resistance, 122. 
Affectation of preferences, 281. 
Affectations, effect of, 306. 
Albert, Prince, 100. 
Alcibiades, education of, 84. 
Amateurship, 99. 

Ambition, self-government, for the sake 
of, 72. 

Ampere, his religious faith, 220 ; in 
society,' 31 1 ; his clothes, 312. 

Amusements, 321. 

Anatomy, earily forgotten, 83^ 

Ancient thought, modern indifference 
to, 108. 

Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse, 

438- . . 

Aristocracies, their restriction of stu- 
dies, 75. 

Aristocracy, the English, of the last 
generation, 76 ; its liberal and illi- 
beral spirit, 287. . . 

Arnold, Dr., his definition of religion, 
214; his intellectual force, 220; his 
travels on the Continent, 292 ; his 
longing for natural beauty, 434. 

Arnold, Matthew, a consideration sug- 
gested by, 349; his poem, "Self- 
dependence," 366. 

Associations, incongruous, 129. 

Athletic Englishman, 24. 

Attractiveness of intellectual labour, 
45. 

Authority, central, in the mind, 57 ; not 
recognized by the intellect, 224 ; re- 
jection of, 299. 

Author, the, views from his windsws, 

447. 448. 



Authors, their want of discipline, 56 ; 

professional, their lives not always 

favourable to culture, 184. 
Avarice, in time, 148. 



Baker, Lady, 240. 
Balzac, 339. . . 

Barbarian feeling, expression of, 285. 
Baudelaire, Charles, on daily labour, 

Beckford, Mr.,how he wrote " Vathek," 
8 : his riches, 168. 

Beer, 17. 

Beginnings, 107. . 

Beliefs of the intellectual, the;r pro- 
visional character, 399. 

Beranger, effects of Paris on his mind, 
442. . 

Bernard, St., his absorption in thought, 

444- 
Birth, the sentiment of, 297- 
Bixio, Alexandre, 31. 
Bossuet on riches, 181. 
Botany, 96. 
Botch-work, 406. 
Bourgeoisie, French, want of elevation 

in, 294. . 

Boy, who spoke Latin, 93 ; the authors 

eldest, 120. . 

Boys, two, their muscular and intellec- 
tual tendencies, 22. 
Brahe, Tycho, 182. 

Brain, demands repose when ex- 
hausted, 9; state of, at different 
times, 388 ; in youth and maturity, 
391. 
** Bramleighs, The," quoted, 406. 
Breakfast, 14. 

Browning, effect of locality on, 43*- 
Bruno, Giordano, 53; his indifference 

to external events, 440. 
Buckland, Mrs., 240- , ... 

Buckle, Mr., his love of town life, 

437- 
Buffon, 409. 

GO 



*50 



INDEX. 



Bunyan, his imprisonment, 331. 

Bums, his rusticity, 278; his uneasi- 
ness and defiance, 2S3. 

Byron, effect of poetical excitement 
upon his health, 4 ; his morality, 69 ; 
his classical education and foreign 
travel, 97 ; his aristocracy, 278 ; his 
dislike to hear poetry called a " pro- 
fession," 409. 

C. 

Carpenter, Dr., his early experience, 

-, 173- . ... 
Caste, its pride in ignorance, 279 ; and 

religion, 293. 
Caste-sentiment, 281. 
Cerebral symptoms occasioned by 

mental labour, 3. 
Charities, intellectual, 351. 
Chemists dependent upon the indus- 
trial class, 421. 
Children, the best teachers of lan- 
guages, 116; their power of imita- 
tion, 122. 
Church, the, its felicities and advan- 
tages as a profession, 396. 
' Claribel," a Frenchman's reading of, 

89. 
Classics, patronized by pedants, 385. 
Class views, 277 ; spirit, when odious, 

289. 
Clergy, the English, their position, 396; 
their difficulty in attaining disinter- 
estedness of thought, 397. 
Clerical life, its attractions for the in- 
tellectual, 398. 
Clock, minute slavery to, 393. 
Coffee, 20. 
Coleridge, his idea of a profession, 

411. 
Comfort, dangers of it, 251. 
Commerce, absurd prejudices against, 

4 2 4- 

Compensation, in the effects of time, 
164. 

Competence, certificates of, 105. 

Comte, Auguste, 221 ; his isolation, 
331 ; his abstinence from news- 
papers, 377 ; his peculiar gift, ib. 

Conformity in trivial matters, 197. 

Contemporaries, jealousy of, 383. 

Contempt, effects of, 283. 

Conversation, general, 321. 

Conversations, general, in England, 
320. 

Cook, lesson learned from a, 73. 

Cookery, importance of scientific, 16. 

Coolness of the experienced, 338. 

Cotton-manufacture leaves little spare 
time fur culture, 427. 

Cotton-manufacturers, 426. 

Cowp^r, his horror of towns, 437. 

Cream and curaQoa, 265. 



Creeds, how they protect traditionSt 
220. 

Cripple, a poor, 274. 

Criticism cannot be ignored, 210. 

Culture, guardians of, 296 ; the life 
most favourable to, 332; and indus- 
trial occupations, 418. 

Custom and tradition, 103. 

Custom, uses of, 197; art of reforming, 
198. 

Customs, bad, to be resisted, 198. 

Cuvier, his paralysis, 41 ; a model 
student, 344 ; his remarkable power 
of self-direction, 392 ; and the expe- 
dition to Egypt, 403. 



D. 

Degrees, 504. 
Dejeuner, 14. 
Delane, Mr. W. F. A., his care of his 

health, 6. 

Delusions about time, 146. 

Democracy, inevitable defect of a, 
293 ; its power of exclusion, ib. ; tho 
Parisian, 295. 

Democratic idea, hopes for, 298. 

Deviation in marriage, danger of, 249. 

Dickens, his works, 278 ; effect of 
locality on, 432 ; his need of the 
London streets, 433. 

Dictionaries, time wasted over, 148. 

Dignity, want of, in democratic com- 
munities, 290. 

Dilettantism, 100. 

Diplomacy as a field for the intellect, 
427. 

Discipline, work done for, 54; the 
want of, 55. 

Discussions with ladies, 270. 

Diseased persons, how they injure 
themselves, 21 ; their peculiar expe- 
rience, 32. 

Diseases often permit mental activity, 

33- 
Disingenuousness, 218. 

Disinterestedness, 62 ; want of it in 

newspapers, 65. 
Dore, Gustave, his studio, 445. 
Drinks, 16. 
Drudgery, 46. 

Dryden, his fluctuation of spirits, 343. 
Dumas, Alexandre, his capacity for 

work, 9. 
Durer, Albert, his " Melencolia," 34a. 



Eagerness, bad effects of, 335. 
Ear, innocence of, 123. 
Early and late work, 389. 
Eccentricity of study, 258. 



INDEX. 



451 



Ecclesiastical authority, weakening of, 

203. 
Economy of time, 135. 
Education, modern, 100 ; fashionable, 

3°S- 

Efficiency, much of it owing to nar- 
rowness, 77. 

Effort, intense, 8; the principal in the 
day, 387. _ 

Emerson, his suggestion about stan- 
dard authors, 379 ; his suggestion 
, about secondary writers, 382. 

Enault, Louis, 138. 

England, public opinion in, 425. 

Englishman, an, in Paris, 123. 

Engravers, their labour, 51. 

Ennui of the intellectual, 341. 

Enthusiasm for knowledge, 418. 

Equality, theory of, 299. 

Erdan, M., his letters in the Tem/s, 
3S0. 

Etching, technical difficulty of, 50. 

Etiquette unfavourable to the culture 
of women, 261. 

Etonian in a cotton factory, 426. 

Excitement, present, bad effects of it 
on 'work, 65. 

Exercise, privation of, 8 ; difficulty of 
taking an interest in, 25 ; neglect of, 
26 ; faith in, 27 ; concentration of, 
28. _ 

Experience of the moderns, 109. 



F. 



Fane, Julian, his gentlemanhood, 289. 
Faraday, his religious faith, 222 ; not 

professional, 410. 
Fashion, definition of, 309. 
Fashionable and intellectual lives, 309, 

3 T 7- 
Fearlessness, intellectual, 218. 
Feudalism, remains of, 425. 
Fine arts as a profession, 403. 
Fortresses untaken in the rear, 141. 
French, the, their public opinion, 204. 
Frenchmen as English scholars, 88. 
Freshness, the mind's, 340. 
Friends, intellectual, their succession, 

302. 
Friendships, intellectual, 300, 303. 



Galileo, his recollection of Padua, 437. 
Genius, men of, their habits, 361. 
Genteel notions, 282. 
Gentleman, fashionable ideal of a, 310. 
Gentlemen, want of, on the Continent, 

293. 
Germans, in France, 123 ; in London, 

ib. ; their intellectual labours, 154. 



Gifted people, their power in society, 

323- 

Gladstone, Mr., address delivered by, 
428. 

Goethe, his habits in eating and dniiit- 
in g» x 5 '• his delight in exercise, 3^ , 
his studies, 126 ; variety of his stu- 
dies, 156 ; fortunate in money mat- 
ters, 183 ; regularity of his intellec- 
tual life, 344 ; at the bombardment 
of Verdun, 439 ; effects of Frankfort 
upon his childhood, 441 ; effects of 
the tranquillity of Weimar on his 
mind, 442 ; his private study, 444. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, his wayward ex- 

Eeriences, 97 ; his dress, 313 ; on 
ack-writing, 413. 
Gothic builders, an artistic error of, 

146. 
Governments, their protection of the 

fine arts, 102. 
Greek, abandonment of, 106 ; as a 

weapon of caste, 284. 
Gymnastics, 29. 



H. 

Habit, minute regularity of, objection- 
able, 13 ; operation of, 386. 

Habits, regularity of, 394. 

" Half-educated," the, 130. 

Happiness, domestic, 252. 

Harness, 371. 

Health, effect of mental labour upon, 
2. 

Heine, his longing for sylvan scenery, 

T 433- 

Help, mutual, of different pursuits, 
140 ; intellectual, 352. 

Helps, Sir Arthur, on good workmen, 
180. 

Hermit-life, imperfection of, 325. 

High life, 2S8. 

History not written disinterestedly, 
66. 

Holden, Francis, 98. 

Honesty, 67 ; value of, 209. 

Humboldt, Alexander, the moral basis 
of his greatness, 62 ; his use of for- 
tune, 174 ; his views of the origin of 
the species, 217 ; equality of his tem« 
perament, 344 ; sale of his estate, 
418 ; how he appreciated Paris, 437. 

Humboldts, the, their youth at Tegel, 
437- 



Idle moments, value of, 15a. 

Idleness, uses of, 370. 

Immorality, peculiar temptation of the 

intellectual to, 69; effects of, upon 

the mind, 71. 



45* 



INDEX. 



Impatience, causes of, 337. 

Incompatibility between pursuits, 419. 

Individuals in society, 319. 

Indocility of great workers, 54. 

Indolence of men of genius, 9. 

Industry, chiefs of, 417 ; leaders of, 
428. 

Influence desired by the intellectual, 
348. 

Ingres, his advice to his pupils, 339. 

Ingres, Madame, a model wife, 230. 

Initiative, absence of intellectual, in 
women, 244. 

Inspiration, waiting for, 362. 

Intellectual methods independent of 
tradition, 225. 

Interruption, evils of, 137. 

Intimacy, dangers of too perfect, 238. 

Intoxication, mental, 44. 

Island, dream of a Latin, 93. 

Isolation of high culture, 328. 

Italian, an, who spoke French per- 
fectly, 117. 

J- 

Jacquemont, Victor, quoted, 154. 

Jealousy between intellectual and in- 
dustrial classes, 420. 

Jesuit, sermon by a, 397. 

Johnson, Dr., his love of" town-life, 437. 

Joubert, easily fatigued, 9; his small 
production, 355. 

Journalism, anonymous, 298 ; in Eng- 
land, 414 ; practice of, 415. 



K. 

Kant, his habits, 10 ; his attention to 

the physical life, 12. 
Keats, his genius and culture, 363. 
Kepler, his struggles, 182. 
Knowledge, selection of, 76 ; indirectly 

useful to authors, 97 ; pride of, 408. 



L. 



Ladies, discussions with, 270. 

Laity, self-assertion of, 203. 

Language, lost, recovery of, 121 ; de- 
filed by popular taste, 293. 

Languages, modern, no, 112 ; illu- 
sions about modern, 113 ; five pro- 
positions about, 113, 114; foreign, 
difficulty of learning, 115 ; too many 
attempted, 124 ; limits in, 139, 140. 

Late risers, 387. 

Latin and Greek, the reading of, 139. 

Latin, a scholar in, 79 ; doubts whether 
any modern ever mastered it, 87 ; 
pronunciation of, 91 ; made a spoken 
language, 92 ; the study of, 109. 



Law, the inward, 60; profession of, 

_ 399- 

Lawyer, a Scotch, 235. 

Lawyers, 425 ; their admirable disci- 
pline, 59 ; often narrowed by pro- 
fessional views, 400 ; their sense of 
affairs, 401. 

Learned, the, 131. 

Leonardo da Vinci, 131. 

Leslie, his painting-room, 446. 

Lewis, John, his studies, 49. 

Limits, utility of, 138. 

Literary engagements, 164. 

Literature, professional, "41 3. 

Livingstone, his sacrifices, 419. 

Locality, power of, 432. 

Locke on liberty of mental action, 57. 

London, the true home of the intellec- 
tual, 328. 

Longevity, value of, to the intellectual 
life, 41. 

Lullo, the Oriental missionary, 440. 

M. 

Magnificence, effect of natural, upon 
the mind, 431. 

Manners, democratic, 291. 

Marriage, how little is known about it, 
227 ; two kinds of, suitable to the in- 
tellectual, 228 ; the intellectual, 232, 
240 ; intellectual ideal of, 238. 

Marriages, unhappy, 227 ; rich, dan- 
gers of, 253. 

Mature life, its duties, 107. 

Medicine, profession of, 401. 

Meissonier, his studies, 49. 

Memories, selecting, 125; bad, 126; 
defective, cures for, 127. 

Memory, in painting, 127 ; rational 
art of, 128. 

Mental labour, effects of excess in, 5 ; 
indirect effects of, ib. 

Meryon, the etcher, 50. 

Michelet, his manner of composition, 
412. 

" Midshipman Easy," 144. 

Military' profession, the, 402. 

Milton, his retirement, 331. 

Mind, tuning of the, 392. 

Minds, three classes of, 357. 

Miscalculation about time, 151. 

Mitford, Miss, on the selfishness of 
authors, 381. 

Mnemotechnic art, objections to, 128. 

Modern mind, its unwillingness to 
break with tradition, 206. 

Modern spirit, not hostile to tradition, 
206. 

Money, the protector of the intellec- 
tual life, 186 : art of using, 187. 

Montaigne, his infancy, 88 ; corruption 
of his Latin, 94 ; his books, 166 ; 
his study, 447. 



INDEX. 



453 



Moore. Thomas, his labour in " Lalla 
Rookh," 47. 

Morality, 69. 

Morris, William, his "Earthly Para- 
dise," 98 ; his culture, 363. 

Mother-tongue, partially lost, 117. 

Mulready, his preparations for work, 
40. 

Multiplicity of pursuits, 82. 

Music, its influence, 23, 96 ; its effects 
on general culture, 97 ; the study of, 
140. 



N. 

Napoleon I., his advice to do nothing, 
145 ; on the winning of battles, 361. 

Napoleon III., 100. 

Narrowness, aristocratic, in English 
authors, 279. 

Nature, penalties of, 194. 

Naval profession, the, 402. 

Necessity of the intellectual class, 

* 423- . . , . 

Necessity, a stimulus in some careers, 
176 ; effect of, in the higher pur- 
suits, 177 ; bad effects of it on study, 
178. 

Nervous system, 1. 

Newspaper correspondents, 373. 

Newspapers, abstinence from, 372 ; 
contents of, 374 ; utility of, 377. 

Nightingale, Florence, on interruption, 

157- . , , . . 

Night-work, medical objection to, 390. 
Noblemen, English, their advantages, 

286. 
Noblesse, old French, its ignorance, 

292. 
Nomads, English, 430. 
Novelty, importance of, in newspapers, 

374- 

O. 

Obscure persons, their influence, 34. 

Opportunities, 192 ; in society, 320. 

Oratory, excitement of, 44. 

Order in study, 141. 

Organs of sense, their importance in 

intellectual pursuits, 37. 
Orleans, Duchess of, 171. 
Owen, Professor, his views of human 

longevity, 217. 



P. - 

Painter, a, his knowledge and skill, 

x 33- 

Pointers, what they suffer from visi- 
tors, 330 ; experienced, their methods 
Of work, 339. 



Painting, the French and Belgian 

schools, 48. 
Parliament, Houses of, 188. 
Parsimony, its effects, 189. 
Partisan writing, 375. 
Partisans, their intellectual defects, 

64. 
Passion, the, of able men, 180. 
Patriotism and self-respect, 350. 
Patronage, the use for it not altogethei 

passed away, 173. 
Pedants, 385. 
Penalties for rebellion against custom, 

194. 
Perfection, the labour that it costs, 100. 
Pets of Nature, 32. 
Phillip, John, his principle of work, 

339- 
Philosopher, a Greek, anecdote of, 419. 
Photographic processes, 422. 
Physical and intellectual lives, 30. 
Physicians, 425. 
Pioneers, intellectual, 418. 
Pitfalls, 144. 

Pleasure, the love of intellectual, 43. 
Poems, prize, 102. 
Poets, their excitement, 360. 
Poor students, encouragement for, 190. 
Pope, infallibility of, 223. 
Posterity, 201. 

Poverty, a great obstacle, 187. 
Prescott, the historian, 39. 
Present age not exceptionally scornful 

of preceding ages, 204. 
Pressure injurious to the highest kinds 

of labour, 161. 
Priests, their method, 213. 
Primer, a French, its pecuniary value, 

183. 
Prince Consort, his influence on public 

opinion, 242. 
Procrastination often time's best pre- 
server, 145. 
Profession of literature, 409. 
Professors in the French university, 

their marriages, 233. 
Proportion in knowledge, 75. 
Protection in intellectual pursuits, 101. 
Protestantism and intellectual supe* 

riority, 219. 



R. 

Ravignan, Father, 444. 

Reading, illusions about, 147 ; painful 

to the uneducated, 353 ; as practised 

by most people, 384. 
Reality the reward of labour, 318. 
Rebels useful to civilization, 196. 
Rebellion against custom, 194. 
Recluses, 329. 

Refinement, reactions from, 71. 
Refusals, mental, their importance, 591 



454 



INDEX. 



Regimen, effect of, 14. 
Religion, intellectual, 214, 216 ; fashion- 
able, 316. 
Religious belief, the test of it, 215. 
Rembrandt, his advice to Hoogstraten, 

3°3- 
Republics, argument against, 202. 
Residence, fixity of, 285 ; selection of, 

" Rest and be thankful," 368. 

Rest and haste, 365. 

Results, humble, 355. 

Reynolds, his faith in labour, 49. 

Rich man, the, his temptations, 172. 

Rich, the, their social duties, 171. 

Riches, intellectual, 341. 

Romans, the ancient, their education, 

8 5- 

Roscoe, William, consequences of his 
study of Italian, 98." 

Rosse, Lord, 171. 

Rossini, his advice to a young com- 
poser, 149. 

Rubens, 403. 

Ruskin, Mr., his use of sight, 38 ; his 
career aided by wealth, 179 ; effect 
of locality on, 432. 

Rust, 82. 



S. 



Sainte-Beuve, his horror of the ct 
/>eu prfe, 56 ; his plan of life, 185 ; 
a convinced atheist, 221. 

Sand, George, how she bore extra 
pressure, 6 ; on mental indiscipline, 
58. 

Saussure, De, his career aided by 
wealth, 179. 

Schiller wasting time in hack-work, 
182. 

Scholar, the, 132. 

Scholars of the sixteenth century, 88. 

Scholarship, in Latin, 88 ; of a French- 
man in English, 89 ; an illusion of, 
91 ; old-fashioned, 136. 

Scott, Sir Walter, effect of labour and 
anxiety upon his health, 4 : his field 
sports, 7 ; his habits in eating and 
drinking, 15 ; his pedestrianism, 29 ; 
"half-educated," 86; antiquarian 
element in, 97 ; his principle of work, 
339 ; on Dryden's inequality of 
spirits, 343. 

Scriptures, infallibility of, 223. 

Selection, value of, 162 ; in writing, 
164. 

Senancour, De, on poverty, 181. 

Senses, perfection of, 36 ; their pre- 
servation, 40 ; the lower, importance 
of. ib. 

Separation of the senses, 241. 

Serenity of thought interfered with by 
a too minute division of time, 394. 



Sergeant, a Garibaldian, 118. 

Servant, a Neapolitan, 119. 

Shelley, his delight in boating, 7 ; 
effect of literary composition on his 
health, 9 ; his morality, 69 ; had no 
profit from his writings, 182 ; his 
dislike to society, 329. 

Shopkeepers in literature, 279. 

Shyness, its bad effects, 263. 

Sincerity and culture, 266. 

Skill, 407.; contempt for, 408. 

Small things, interest of, 261. 

Smith, Sydney, on carelessness, 175. 

Smoking, 19. 

Society will be obeyed, 195 ; its in- 
fluence, 305 ; conditions for success 
in it, 307 ; test of its sincerity, 315 ; 
its professed respect for culture, 317. 

Socrates, his health, 30 ; defence of, 

159- 
Solicitor, a London, 250. 
Solitude, necessary, 324 ; uses of, 323 I 

effects of, 327 ; that which is really 

injurious, 332. 
Sound, importance of, in literature, go. 
Soundness in knowledge, definition of, 

x 37- 

Southey, his cerebral breakdown, 4. 

Sport, 25. 

Stael, Madame de, how she obtained 
literary material, 37. 

Sterility, intellectual, 358. 

St. Hilaire, Geoffroy, 34; at Alex- 
andria, 439, 440. 

Stimulants, 18, 21. 

Students, classical, in. 

Studies, bad effects of, 75, 76; held to 
be useless, 95 ; pet, 103. 

Studio, "building of a, 443. 

Study for literary men, 411. 

Sue, Eugene, his habits in the country, 

Suffering, its teachings, 31. 
Surgeons and physicians, 402. 
Surgeons, their discipline, 59. 
Sydney Smith, his vigorous common- 
sense, 220. 



T. 



Taine, M. , a suggestion of, 352. 

Talk, printed, 414. 

Taste, fashionable, its mobility, 315. 

Tea, 20. 

Teaching, gratuitous, 354. 

Technical difficulty of painting, 50. 

Tennyson, his finish, 416 ; quotations 

from his poem "Maud," 345. 
Tests, severe, 112. 
Thiers, M., his elevation, 375. 
Tillier, Claude, quoted, 153. 
Time and occasion, 142. 
Time, power of, 134 ; brevity of, 143 ; 

thrift of, 145 ; economy of, 369 ; lost, 



INDEX. 



455 



369 ; division of, 391 ; small spaces 
of, how to be utilized, 392 ; fragments 
of, useless in some pursuits, 393 ; in 
masses, ib. 

Time-savers, the best, 135. 

Titian at Venice, 443. 

Tobacco, 18. 

Topffer quoted, 153. 

Towns, effect of ugly, upon the mind, 
431. 

Trade, effects of it upon the mind, 428. 

Trades, distinctions between, 425. 

Tradition, abandonment of, 200 ; de- 
cline of its influence, 205 ; favour- 
able to professional skill, 207. 

Travel, Mr. Galton's advice about, 

334- 
Travels, 354. 
Turgot, his habits in eating and work, 

15- 
Tycho Brahe, 277 ; his fear of losing 

caste, 280 ; his establishment of 

Uranienborg, 436. 

U. 

Ultramontane party, 63. 
Unsoundness in knowledge, 137. 

V. 

Valvedre, 254. 

Vernet, Horace, his principle of work, 

.339- 
Vinci, Leonardo da, 131. 
Virtue of trying to be disinterested, 

6 7 . 
Vulgarity in France, 295. 



W. 

Waiters, polyglot, 124. 

Warwickshire, scenery of, repulsive to 
Dr. Arnold, 434. 

Wasted time, 136. 

Weakness, work done in, 33. 

Wealth, the temptations of it to which 
Englishmen yield, 170; its favour- 
able effect on culture, 190 ; the 
science of, 421. 

Westmoreland, scenery of, effects on 
Dr. Arnold, 435. 

Westmorland, Lady, a letter of hers 
about Julian Fane, 211. 

Wines, 16. 

Wives, their great influence, 239. 

Woepke, Franz, mathematician and 
Orientalist, 74, 77. 

Women, education of, 230 ; good 
pupils, bad solitary learners, 236; 
how they help us, ib.\ their intellec- 
tual nature, 243 ; absence of scien- 
tific curiosity in, 245.; do not in- 
vent, 247 ; their subservience to 
custom, 258 ; greatest misfortune of 
their intellectual life, 264 ; their 
reference to persons, 272. 
Woollen manufacturers, 426. 
Work spoiled in the doing, 180. 
Workers, decided, 339. 
Wordsworth, effect of literary compo- 
sition upon, 2 ; his pedestrianism, 
29 ; his dread of writing, 47 ; his 
good fortune in money matters, 
182 ; his ignorance of modern works, 
381. 



THE END. 



ttl2^ 



81 



,0* -' 











'°- *> 



•<?«■ 







,H^ 



i* 



/* 




* ^ 



*. 




^<k 







"W 






?>' ^%, : - 



*y & 








*v 



■A Q^ 
1> «<* 






o 










a^ * <sstt\n%* Ta , 








v\- 








: > v 






°o 




\.V "^. " " " A v 







